Capilano Courier // Volume 48 // Issue 6

VOL UME

48

NORTH VANCOUVER, OCTOBER 14TH 2014

ISSUE

N O . 06

Explaining the mechanics of our expensive property prices EZRA LEVANT

GEOFFREY THE GIANT

THE CONSTANTINES

UBER RETURNS

CAPILANO Courier

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

capilanocourier.com

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News

A+C

CaleNdar

Features

OpiNiONs

COlumNs

CabOOse

Wicked Waters

Sweet Tooth

Debbie Wears a Bra

Tech Dressing

Shut Up!

Broke Canadians

Capilano Cuts?

Leah Scheitel Editor-in-Chief

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

@capilanocourier

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

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The Staff

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@capilanocourier

Therese Guieb News Editor

of this birth control eating, instruction reading university newspaper

Andy Rice Managing Editor

Alva Tee Arts + Culture Editor

Andrew Palmquist Production Manager

Faye Alexander Features Editor

Cheryl Swan Art Director

Gabriel Scorgie Opinions Editor

Carlo Javier Lifestyle Editor

Ricky Bao Still On Vacation...

Brandon Kostinuk Web Editor

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

Heather Connor, Keara Farnan, Christine Beyleveldt, Michael Smith, Tristen Schmidhauser, Melissa Verdicchio, Nicholas Cupelli, Simon Thistlewood, Steve Tornes, Ben Bengtson, Rosanna Hemple, Cianda Bourrel, Scott Barkemeyer CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS:

Tierney Milne, J.R. Pinto, Jason Jeon, Sydney Parent, Stephen Hare, Olliemoonsta, Ksenia Kozhevnikova, Kelsey Holden, Amy Mayer, Samantha Smith, James Seville, Chris Dedinsky, Guillem Rovira, Megan Collinson, Cristian Fowlie,

To advertise in the Courier’s pages, please contact our Advertising Director, Andy Rice, at 778-855-9942 or advertising.capcourier@gmail.com. We are proud to offer discounts to non-profit organizations and North Shore customers. A full media kit with sizes, rates and deadlines is available on our website, CapilanoCourier.com.

The Capilano Courier is an autonomous, democratically run student newspaper. Literary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste, and legality. The Capilano Courier will not publish material deemed by the collective to exhibit sexism, racism or homophobia. The views expressed by the contributing writers are not necessarily those of the Capilano Courier Publishing Society.

Letter From The Editor Leah Scheitel, Editor-in-Chief

earn your pizza, enjoy your burrito "For me personally, I have a fear of, 'If I stop, I'm going to die.' If I stop doing the things that are enriching to me or creatively exciting to me or if I stop creating, then I feel stagnant. If something isn't growing, it's dying."

- Chris Hardwick At the beginning of the semester, I set a goal for myself: to wake up everyday at 5:19 am. I know it’s an obscene hour, one I usually prefer to see after an ample amount of whiskey and some late night street meat. But my goal is to pour endless amounts of coffee and have at least two hours of work on my career — not my schoolwork or my current job at the Courier, but my career — before most people even start their days.

The reason behind this new method is essentially fear. I’m at the cusp of graduation and really no closer to the career I wanted when I began my education. My ambition is be a freelance writer for magazines like Esquire and Vanity Fair, not to construct corporate social responsibility policies for big businesses. And to ensure that I am able to leave my very expensive education with any career potential, I have to work for it. I’m terrified that after five years of higher learning and a substantial amount of student loans, I will be no better off than when I start — therefore, I’m working my balls off to open as many opportunities as I can before I have to toe my way into an adult job.

I’m not the only one with this ambition. It’s truly a marvel how much work students take on. Between term papers, group projects and part-time jobs to fund our educations, it’s a wonder we even have the time to swipe right on our Tinder profiles and have any chance at a social life. I’ve calculated that between my work at the Courier and the ample amount of homework I conquer weekly, I’m working about 85 hours per week. I’m not alone, as many students face similar schedules to mine, using coffee, cigarettes or booze as a crutch to hold them together. To ease my mind and catch up on my satire, I often fall asleep watching The Daily Show with John Stewart, allowing me to roll over in the mornings to an open computer screen and begin working straight away. I’m very grateful that the nature of my work is best done in solace, from the comforts of my home, clad in sweatpants and surrounded by cats.

If it wasn’t this way, it wouldn’t work out.

In spring of 2013, the Courier had a column written by Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head band member, Luke Atlas. In his last column for ‘Hollyweird’, he wrote about earning your pizza. “I want to feel like I deserve all the nice things in my life,” Atlas wrote, “That large, hot pizza with all the toppings feels well deserved (and tastes better) when devoured after a long, steep, hike in the hills.”

This has stuck with me ever since I first read it a year and a half ago, and it’s not just because I really like eating pizza. He’s completely right — success and rewards, whether it’s a deep dish Chicago-style pizza with extra toppings or a dream job at the offices of Esquire, will always feel better if you’ve worked for them. The work is half of the reward. And this is my motivation to wake up way too early and work towards something that I really want — my career.

What I’ve noticed is that I’ve been so set on earning my pizza and putting in the work that I often neglect the little moments of enjoyment along the way. At the end of every Nerdist podcast (also, if you don’t listen to this, you should — it’s great) Chris Hardwick tells listeners to “Enjoy your burrito.”

In an episode with Will Forte, he explained that he always says this to remind people to enjoy what their doing. If you have a honking big Chipotle burrito in front of you, enjoy every goddamned bite.

It would be a waste not to.

Both messages resonate with me in very different ways, and not just because some days I crave burritos and others it’s pizza. Yeah, I want to work hard to be worthy of a hot pizza pie, and enjoy it when and if I finally get there. But I can’t be so set on it that it’s all I see. This is my last year of university, and I will not be going for more school after this. So I should take advantage of it — really, it’s going to take years of work before I have another opportunity to run a publication of any size with 10 of my friends. I get to dictate the content whilst dancing on the art director’s desk. I’m constantly humoured by our weekly headlines and the jokes that litter these pages. After agreeing to a back page joke about boners in last week’s issue, I realized that it’s going to be years before I get to have this much control and fun running an entire publication. That’s a privilege. And to boot, I get to do it with some pretty cool people.

So that’s my burrito. The Courier is my burrito, and I plan to enjoy it for all it’s worth and all that I’ve got left of it. And while devouring every last crumb of my burrito, I’m going to keep striving for that pizza. And if that means waking up at 5:19 am to read articles and search websites for potential jobs and working upwards of 80 hours a week, that’s okay. In fact, it’s almost ideal. My Tinder sucks these days, and it will make that pizza taste even better — earn your pizza but enjoy your burrito.

tweets OF the week

the VOiCe bOx

*

with

Andy Rice

The Voicebox is back, ready to humbly respond to your questions, concerns, and comments about anything. To inquire, just send a text to 778.855.9942 to anonymously "express" and "voice" your "opinion" and "thoughts" on any "subject" or "issue". And, as long as it's not offensive, we will publish it here, right in the Voicebox. It's a win - win, or whine - whine whatever way you look at it.

So what’s Cap gonna do with the actual studio arts building? May I suggest a laser tag arena?

I gotta say that I have never been so surrounded by people and felt so alone in my entire life. #makingfriendsatcapuishard

No.

Not at all. Did she come off a little strong? She sounds much nicer in our News section this week where she’s talking about The Feast Worldwide. See, she’s not against eating!

I completely disagree with the opinions article on parking you published last week. I just went to four different pay stations with my credit card to pay and none of them would accept it. Do they expect me to beg for change to fucking park here? And now I’m late for an economics exam. Who do we have to blow to get the pay stations fixed?

I’m not sure. Maybe Carlo? He seems to have some pull around here. I took a Car2Go to work today and dumped the thing off in the upper parking lot, so that’s how I manage to avoid your problem. And to avoid blowing Carlo.

(No offense, Carlo).

*

The Associated Press @AP North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's apparent no-show at major event adds to mounting speculation about his health i100 @thei100 Kim Jong-un has seemingly disappeared, and experts suggest he has been deposed pourmecoffee @pourmecoffee Kim Jong Un almost done with his Breaking Bad marathon. pourmecoffee @pourmecoffee Kim Jong Un comes bursting out of a wormhole piloting MH370 live on camera. #cnndreams Wall Street Journal @WSJ Will Kim Jong Un show up? South Korea downplays North Korean strongman's extended absence Arsenio Hall @ArsenioHall I just saw Kim Jong Un standing in line outside of Roscoe's Chicken And Waffles on Gower. #hmmmm Blogs of War @BlogsofWar I thought I'd figured out why Kim Jong Un was missing but it turns out the World of Warcraft expansion release is still a few weeks away.

GQ Magazine @GQMagazine We went to North Korea’s Oscars. Kim Jong-un was there.

It was low-budget. It was weird Jo Thornely @jothornely Kim Jong Un is only still missing because all the milk cartons in North Korea already had a picture of him on them.

HuffPost UK @HuffPostUK Disturbing Kim Jong Un conspiracy theory emerges - just who is in charge of nuclear armed NK? The Independent @Independent Kim Jong-un is not missing, just 'recovering from ankle surgery'

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

That girl you featured in WHO YOU last week sounded a little full of herself. And she said she skips breakfast because she ain’t got time for that?! Are you guys promoting anorexia in your newspaper?

Come hang out with us! The Courier staff loves new people, and we’ll make you our new best friend in no time. We’ll also give you money if you write us a story, so that’s basically like getting paid to be our best friend! In all seriousness though, loneliness is a pretty awful feeling and I wish I could make you feel better about this. Meeting new people isn’t easy, but I can assure you it’s not an impossible task at CapU. When I started my degree here, I had just moved to Vancouver from a small town where I knew everyone. It was a total fresh start and I was convinced I would be the loneliest person ever until I eventually finished my degree and moved back to the familiarity of home. Soon, though, I met a great group of people who have become some of my closest friends. I started a band, I met some girls, and I never did end up moving back home because all of these people have made this city my new home. So here’s my advice to you: try and involve yourself in as many clubs and events as possible, look forward to those group projects in your electives, and remember to smile as you walk through the hallways. If you’re positive, vibrant, and willing to try new things, people will notice and you’ll be among friends before you know it.

Kim Jong-un Edition missing like that Malaysian plane...

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NEWS

THERESE GUIEB NEWS EDITOR

NEWS@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

Drugs in the system POLLUTION LEVELS RISE IN CANADA'S DRINKING WATER Tristen Schmidhauser × Writer

× Olliemoonsta Canadians have the privilege to enjoy some of the purest tap water in the world. But even the purest sources need to be filtered. A recent study conducted by First Nations Food Nutrition and Environment in Ontario showed that the water that goes through filtration systems can’t remove all traces of chemicals from our drinking water.

“Consuming contaminated waters can have many

ill-effects, spanning from birth defects, infertility, respiratory illnesses, organ damage and cancer,” says Ariel Tang, environmental division account manager at ALS Global Group.

The study reported that amounts of chemicals have been found inside Ontario’s rivers. Significant traces of cocaine, prescription drugs, pesticides and steroids have all been found in the water the same water that came from the city’s filtration and sewage treatment plants. The researchers who conducted this study said that the situation with Ontario’s drinking water might not be all that unique. According to CBC News, “When Health Canada sampled tap water across Canada, [they] found what they expected to find, traces of drugs in drinking water that comes from rivers and lakes.” Recent technological advances, as well as the increase in prescription drug use have strongly influenced this finding, and similar tests are expected to have the same results across the world. Filtration systems leave behind traces of the chemicals that have been dumped down the toilet, leaving drinking water with potentially harmful substances inside.

Tang notes that the drinking water contamination can come from many different sources. “The common known contaminants in water sources would be heavy metals, tri- and tetrachloroethylene, phthalates and pesticides, the list go on.”

And while trace amounts may sound like too little to matter, she says that “Small doses over a long period of time or high levels in a short time span are equally as harmful to health.”

Accidental chemical spills create a lasting taint in rivers and ecosystems as well, leading to horribly detrimental effects on the environment. The most recent example of this is the Mount Polley coal dam spill. On Aug. 4, the dam holding back contaminated mine water broke. According to the Vancouver Sun, “Imperial Metals has estimated that 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic meters of finely ground rock containing potentially-toxic metals were released by the collapse of the dam.” Most of the contaminated mine water spilled into the Fraser River.

First Nations Mount Polley protest group, Yuct Ne Senxiymetkwe, have said much on the matter of preserving and preventing disasters like this from destroying our environment. “Sixty three per cent of the province depends on this [Fraser] river, and that’s why it needs to concern everyone,” says Kannahus Manuel, a member of Yuct Ne Senxiymetkwe in the Truth and Reconciliation week panel at Capilano University. “The government gave them five warnings already, five warnings that their dam needed to get fixed, but they [Imperial Metals] never followed them,” she continues, “Right now Imperial Metals is trying

get full on intelligence

what's new with the csu?

GLOBAL DINNER PARTY IS COMING TO CAPU

Therese Guieb

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

× News Editor

4

“If you want to make something happen more than enough, people that are passionate will help you turn it into a reality,” says Daniel Dubois, a business student at Capilano University and lead organizer of The Feast Worldwide North Vancouver.

From Oct. 11 to 18, 40 dinner conferences called The Feast Worldwide will be held in six continents across the globe. For the first time ever, Vancouver will serve as a host with two events this year. Both will take place on Oct. 18 — one in downtown Vancouver at Groundswell Café and Learning Space and the other in North Vancouver at CapU. The Feast Worldwide conferences are not your typical dinner parties. Since 2008, the not-forprofit organization has held conferences around the world with a mission of getting people with different backgrounds in the same room to share their ideas and to make them happen. “Every dinner has a theme of progression, [they] can interpret that as they will and develop a specific theme or a specific vision around progression,” explains Dubois, “Each vision starts with ‘a world where’, so it can be as broad as a world where people are empowered to do what they love or as specific as a world where everyone has a place to sleep at night, which stresses homelessness.”

In 2012, The Feast Worldwide in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia resulted in the 2013 launch of the country’s first social incubator which provides social entrepreneurs with the necessary tools to expand their business.

Dubois’ vision is to make the Feast Worldwide in Vancouver “bigger than ever” so he pitched the concept of two dinners occurring on the same night. “Each dinner would have a different vision but they would work together to

cross-promote and bring awareness to the theme of progression,” notes Dubois.

The theme for the Feast Worldwide Downtown Vancouver will be on the progression of the food system. “The vision is a world where growing and eating healthy food connects people,” Dubois continues, “[It] has to do with bringing people together through eating healthy and being self-sustainable with food.”

As for the theme of the dinner taking place at CapU, “[Our] vision is a world where education empowers students to strive to face change,” says Dubois. The reason behind his chosen theme of education is because he is involved in many of CapU’s student clubs and activities, something that has led him to be passionate of the progression in the education system. “Education should be empowering us for the jobs that we don’t even know exist, just to be able to thrive and do great in times of change. I think that this event will help progress our education to move forward for students from all different backgrounds.”

“Everyone should anticipate for a night of change and what I mean about change is not just talking about the things that should be changed in education but more of like how we can and how we are going to make the changes in our education,” says Thanh Le, co-organizer for the Feast Worldwide North Vancouver and a business student at CapU. Although The Feast Worldwide North Vancouver is not being hosted by CapU itself, the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) and the Capilano University Foundation are supporting the global dinner conference. “People want to make a difference and they want to give back a lot of people want to get involved at school even and they just don’t know how,” notes Dubois, “Students are really receptive and so is the school of Capilano University in empowering us to do what we love…

Even the CSU, an organization that I want to

to cover [it] up, the province is still trying to cover it up. If we let this be the precedent, this is the way that all the lines [will be].”

And while the disastrous spill could have ill effects on us, the effect it could have on the salmon migrating through the Fraser River could be fatal.

Past examples have led to a diverse set of results, ranging from the immediate death of the fish, to an inability to breed, even to mutation into what is known as intersex fish.

The recent emergence of intersex fish has been seen around the world. Intersex fish are male fish that have developed egg sacs within their testes.

According to Vicki Blazer, a US geological surveyor and fish biologist, it’s “an indicator that something else is really wrong.” The cause of the intersex fish is reportedly estrogenic chemicals, which disrupt the fish’s natural testosterone and estrogen levels, and result in this strange mutation. The chemicals are anything from household drugs to widely-used pesticides. And with more companies insisting on the use of stronger pesticides, Blazer argued that there will be worse outcomes than just intersex fish, “What are these things doing to their natural environment? If we find these things in wild organisms, there’s a good chance they’re also affecting people.”

Therese Guieb × News Editor

× Sydney Parent physically thank for their contribution.”

“There aren’t many events on campus that are similar to this and I think this will be a great opportunity to the students to not only connect with committee and network but it’s also an opportunity for them to use their skill set in contributing to the discussion,” says Le, “I also think that it will inspire some students to think differently and who knows, maybe this evening will affect the students in a way that will inspire them to change or contribute to a similar cause or a different cause that they’re more passionate about.”

“I expect this event to spark an ongoing conversation on how we can positively continue to move our education pushing forward to meet the challenges of tomorrow,” notes Dubois. He reminds everyone that “[These] events aren’t about a night of networking around this topic but actually bringing people into a room that are doers that can actually not just talk about progressing something forward but making it happen.”

For more information on The Feast Worldwide visit Feastongood.com.

Kris Bulcroft, president of Capilano University, joined the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) board of directors meeting on Oct. 8 to discuss the current situation of the school in regards to drafting the Strategic Plan.

According to Bulcroft, CapU has the lowest tuition fees in BC while also being the lowest funded university in the province. The Ministry of Advanced Education assured her that there is no new money that will be given to the school which means that CapU may face further cuts in the coming year. The school does not have many additional revenue streams, only those from things like the international students’ tuition fees and the bookstore.

The strategic planning process is now at the point where resources to keep the learning centres and other student services running have to be figured out in order to fulfill CapU’s Academic Plan.

Bulcroft encourages the student body to voice their suggestions and ideas by emailing Strategicplanning@capilanou.ca or by attending the next strategic planning forum on Oct. 21 from 9:30 am to 11:00 am in Library 322.

Peter Hedley, the new manager of student affairs also attended the CSU board meeting to introduce himself to the board and share his experiences that led up to his new position.

news

vancuber city DRIVING SERVICE AIMS TO START UP AGAIN Melissa Verdicchio × Writer Uber is a ridesharing service where customers can download the company’s own app to hire drivers to pick them up. The service previously left Vancouver in 2012 when the provincial Passenger Transportation Board asked for the company to obtain a limousine licence, requiring customers to spend a minimum $75 for each trip. “The rates charged by taxis, limousines and other small passenger directed vehicles are set or approved by the Passenger Transportation Board,” explains a spokesperson for the BC Ministry of Infrastructure. Uber disagreed with the rates that the province presented to them. As a result, they had no choice but to stop business operations in the province. “It's important to note that Uber is not banned in BC or in the City of Vancouver. In 2012, when Uber last operated in Vancouver, we offered UberBLACK [a premium black car service] for which we partnered with locally licensed drivers,” says Arielle Goren, spokesperson for Uber.

Uber connects the users to various ride options that include taxis, limousine services and members of the public who have gone through background checks with the company to offer rides for payment.

Once the app is downloaded, customers may sign up on Uber’s website. Customers use the same information that they have created on the website to sign in on the app. Once the customer has signed in, the next step is to choose from five different cars, depending on what city the user is in. Users then mark their location on the map provided on the app and wait for their ride to arrive. The app also provides the user with the phone number of the driver if need be.

Uber charges their users based on a combination of time and distance. If the car is travelling under 11 mph, the user will be charged by the minute. If the user is travelling over 11 mph, they will be charged

by the mile. Customers will also have to pay a base rate, which varies by location. What sets Uber apart from taxi services is that rates for taxi services are set by independent cab operators and tips for taxi drivers are charged automatically. But with Uber, customers pay through the app with their credit card and only UberX (private car) drivers may be tipped if the customer wants to.

“When Uber made the decision to leave, it was prompted not by a licensing issue, but by the BC Passenger Transportation Board's enforcement of a rule that requires a $75 minimum fare for pre-arranged car rides,” says Goren. The City of Vancouver worries that if Uber were to start up, it would be a violation of the laws in BC. This is why Uber is allowed in other cities in Canada but not in the province. “Safety is our main priority,” says the Ministry, “The service Uber provides does not comply with government regulations, and passengers who choose to use this service should be aware the drivers are operating illegally.”

There have been many issues in other cities that involve Uber drivers and public safety. “Uber enforces a background check process that is, in a number of cities, more stringent that those required of taxi drivers,” states Goren. “For example, before one may partner with Uber as a driver in Canada, we run a national criminal background check, a local police check, and lifetime sexual offenses, DUI, and traffic offenses checks.”

The City of Vancouver officials are not alone in their thoughts of Uber not wanting to come back into BC. Vancouver taxi companies have issues against Uber for competitive reasons and the fact that Uber would be an illegal service within the province of British Columbia. Some taxi services have warned their drivers that they will be fired if they are caught signing up for Uber driving services.

Uber has also recently put up ads in Vancouver

× J.R. Pinto to hire drivers without consent from the Passenger Transportation Board. “Any company or driver advertising or providing a service when they’re not licensed to provide is subject to being ticketed,” warned the Passenger Transportation Board. But Goren assures that, “We are always looking for ways to expand our offerings in the markets we serve currently and beyond…Given the current transportation landscape, we believe there is room for Uber in Vancouver. Our aim is to create opportunity for

drivers and choice for consumers.”

When asked what made Uber decide to try again with business in Vancouver, Goren says that, “As a tech-savvy, innovation hub, Vancouver is home to many people who have already embraced Uber. We have heard from many Vancouver locals who were sad to see us leave in 2012, who have since used Uber during their travels around the world, and who look forward to the possibility of Uber's return.”

going private

RALLYING TO PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTHCARE

Faye Alexander × Features Editor

× Jason Jeon man of the Medical Services Commission in an interview with the Vancouver Sun. Despite the rally, Dr. Day’s clinics will continue to function as normal. The Cambie Surgery clinic currently conducts surgeries that conflict with BC’s Medicare Protection Act, as patients can opt to pay to receive care more quickly than the general waiting list at a public hospital. However, Dr. Day argues that the current laws in effect that prevents private clinics from offering extra billing options to patients willing to pay conflicts

is an expensive surgery; it’s about $20,000 to do privately. However, if that financially doable for patients looking for quicker wait times, it would free up the public hospitals wait times for patients who can’t afford that option,” says Heyes.

Many Canadians who are added to waiting lists at public hospitals wait months, if not well over a year to be scheduled for surgery. Oftentimes, the wait means that the patient must endure suffering and pain in the interim. Dr. Day argues that by giving Canadians and BC residents the option to put up the money up front to speed up the process is a right all Canadians should have.

Opponents of private healthcare, which is made up mostly by the BC Health Coalition and backed by powerful healthcare unions, are hoping to end private care all together. Heyes has been satisfied with his care through the public healthcare system, despite the long wait times, “This is my second hip replacement operation due to arthritis and it’s been a huge disability to my work as a general contractor. From the time I was diagnosed to the surgery itself, it was about four months to get the appointment.” If Dr. Day were to win his case and is allowed to continue offering US style healthcare, more physicians will be allowed to charge patients any amount they like for services which could be damaging to the overall healthcare system. This could mean higher costs and longer wait times in the public health system as it will draw doctors to more profitable private clinics.

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

Healthcare advocates and doctors rallied against private healthcare outside of Cambie Surgery Clinic on Sept. 29. Those in attendance of the rally were protesting that private clinics in BC charge their patients additional fees which do not comply with the province’s Medicare Protection Act. “I have been waiting nine months for hip replacement surgery in the public healthcare system,” explains Ian Heyes, a Vancouver general contractor who suffers from arthritis, “I don’t see a problem with clinics offering private care at a price. It would cut down the waiting time of people who can’t afford it. It makes sense to me.”

BC’s Medical Services Commission (BCMSC) stated that they found over 200 cases of extra billing at Cambie Surgery Clinic, as well as at the Specialist Referral Clinic — both private clinics founded by Vancouver doctor, Brian Day. Patients have been billed for publicly ensured medical services generally covered by Canada’s healthcare system. BCMSC’s 2012 audit revealed the hundreds of cases of extra billing by Dr. Brian Day and his respective clinics that have caused an outcry from healthcare advocates and other members of the province’s medical community.

“If the practice of extra billing does not stop within 30 days, the commission will seek a court ordered injunction,” said Tom Vincent, chair-

with Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guarantees a right to “life, liberty and security of person.”

Dr. Vanessa Brcic of the BC Health Coalition, who participated at the rally, spoke to the issue of private clinics and their prevalence in BC, stating that the province is leading the way for similar private clinics. “There’s definitely a tremendous movement towards for-profit care, simply because the profit that you can make from illness and suffering is absolutely tremendous,” explained Dr. Brcic in an interview with the Globe and Mail. Under the Canada Health Act. Doctors may not bill patients privately for procedures that are publicly insured.

Health Minister Terry Lake released an email statement in response to the rally surrounding the Cambie Surgery clinic stating, “Physicians who are practising at these clinics can bill the Medical Services Plan for medically necessary services, as long as they are complying with the Medicare Protection Act.” Lake concluded in his statement by noting no further comment would be made on the case until it is settled or brought to the Supreme Court. Dr. Day has now countered with a lawsuit against the BC health minister and attorney general currently slated for March 2015.

Dr. Day’s concerns swirl around the concept of why shouldn’t Canadians be allowed to spend their own money on their own health care if that is what they choose? “My hip replacement

5

arts + Culture

ALVA TEE ARTS + CULTURE EDITOR

ARTS@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

mould my soul

MODERN SCULPTURES BY RUDOLF SOKOLOVSKI Heather Connor × Writer An art exhibit delving into the themes of beauty, inspiration and the power of the human form is soon to be in Vancouver. Running from Oct. 14 to 19, this upcoming solo exhibition will take place in Chinatown. The show is free to attend and is a great opportunity to explore and experience a unique style of art that is not usually seen in Vancouver.

The artist on display, Rudolf Sokolovski, was born in Odessa, Ukraine. He grew under the influence of his father, Valeri Sokolovski, a very talented artist. Watching his father work in the shop exposed Rudolf to art at a very young age. It wasn’t until many years later that he began the art of sculpting himself as a form of expression.

His artwork embodies the power of the human form and the strength of female sexuality. This new and innovative exhibit will include figurative compositions of all sizes and forms made from bronze and wood mediums as well as portraits of inspirational visionaries such as Mahatma Gandhi and Che Guevara, both of who represent the common theme of freedom. Those who are interested in art and checking out fresh local talent will

× submitted surely enjoy Sokolovski’s art.

From figurative sculptures to life-size portrait busts, Sokolovski currently uses several styles depending on the piece he is working on and what he is trying to depict. “A number of people have told me that my pieces have a style of Linear Expressionism, which is a style that uses rhythmic lines and the flow of forms to express emotion,” says

Sokolovski, “I would tend to agree.

“Although, portraits are something completely different,” he says, “It took me years to understand the concept of tectonics. At its basics, it is the distribution of mass and volume in space, and it deals with not only what is there but also what is not there. It shares a relationship with architecture and what is inherently pleasing to the eye.” When tectonics and composition are balanced properly, it can create an eye-catching piece and that is exactly what Sokolovski accomplished.

He draws his inspiration from a wide range of arts and culture, including classical artists and historical European sculptors, which have a clear impact on his pieces as he uses many fine art traditions. “I was definitely influenced by Russian art, or more specifically, Soviet monumentalism,” he says, “Even though some of it was made strictly for political purposes and is very grandiose in nature, looking at the artwork itself you cannot deny the strength and inspirational feelings it conveys.” He also believes that it’s important to be inspired by the people around him.

“We all have someone that we look up to, some individual that inspires us in some way. I think this is important to have, as they can be our shinning stars when we are most adrift,” says Sokolovski.

The majority of his pieces start from clay because he enjoys the challenge of finding new ways to be expressive and diverse. Working with clay involves mostly hands and fingers followed by texturing and painting. This art technique can be quick compared to others and allows for a large amount of passion to shine through. His projects are often very personal and detailed. “The process of creating a portrait is an intimate one for me, I study the person and their character,” expresses Sokolovski, “I feel for the subtleties of their gaze and their smile, I look for wrinkles that tell me stories. It’s like getting to know someone on a more personal level.”

Ultimately, his artwork captures his own feelings and emotions and wonders the themes of power, freedom and beauty. “Beauty is not just in the exquisite lines of the human body, but more so the honesty in the expression itself,” Sokolovski says, explaining that he finds no greater beauty in the world than the body itself. “The curvature of the wrist, the turn of the neck, the elegance of the fingers. It’s fascinating how the body speaks to you when you really start to analyze it.”

Visit Modernsculpture.ca for more information.

fe - fi - fo - fum GEOFFREY THE GIANT CREATES A YOUTUBE HIT Alva Tee × Arts + Culture Editor

Keara Farnan

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

× Writer

6

Good parodies have always been a hit amongst teenagers, and when that’s combined with a hilarious television show, a hysterical success of a combination is produced. Geoffrey Stone, nicknamed Geoffrey “the Giant,” has done just that with the release of his music video and song titled “Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock”. With over half a million hits on YouTube, Stone is just starting his journey to stardom.

“I'm actually a huge fan of The Big Bang Theory, and I'm also a rock paper scissors champ among my friends. I was watching an episode of <i>Big Bang<i> one night while I was having dinner, and the episode featured the game,” says Stone, telling the story of how the idea came to him. “When I was doing my dishes afterwards, I was melodizing the words as I often do to amuse myself when I'm doing menial chores. As I was improvising a melody on the words ‘Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock,’ it dawned on me that this would make for a great song and music video, and I quickly rushed to my piano to write it before I lost the idea.

“As a songwriter, satire and parody are a couple of great tools at my disposal which I’ll usually only break out for a lyric or two here and there from song to song,” he says, “And only on occasion will I write a tune that’s strictly satirical. But it’s a great device to use to introduce a bit of comic relief in a song, or to get a point across and give the listener some food for thought.”

Stone is able to exercise his creative side in more ways than just through his music, as he also created a fully interactive online game as a web app for people to enjoy. While his vision for these particular ideas were inspired by the hit comedy show on CBS, The Big Bang Theory, his musical influences include

× Scott Martin Ron Sexsmith, a Canadian singer/songwriter, and other legendary bands such as the Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five, Queen, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

In his new album, Geoffrey the Giant’s Big Bang, the tracks resemble the diverse sounds of these bands put together, creating his own unique style. “I have a few satirical tunes on my upcoming record. As a songwriter, I like to write about a variety of different topics in a variety of different ways,” says Stone, “It keeps things interesting. I’ve always loved Barenaked Ladies for that reason.”

Stone believes that having a combination of quirky tunes and serious or sincerely genuine songs is very clever. “It makes sense to me to have that dichotomy,” he says, “It’s good to have comic relief on a record or in a live set, especially if a lot of the other material is of a serious nature.”

The stylistic approaches and diversity in subject matter Stone uses in each of his songs make his music stand out from other acts in the pop and rock genre. “This new record I’m working on really dem-

onstrates that well,” he says, “You’ll hear a straightup rock tune riffling on a certain crack-smocking mayor [Rob Ford], then the next song you’ll hear will sound like a Michael Buble swing-pop song, followed by another rock tune but fused with mariachi-style trumpets as if it was pulled straight off the soundtrack to a spaghetti western flick.”

In the music business, there are quite a few struggles that an up-and-coming artist has to face. For Stone, most of them are financial. “It costs a ton of money to make a quality recording, even if you’re doing things on the cheap with a home studio set up,” he says, “I have to pay musicians for studio and live work, as well as foot the bill for travel costs such as food, transportation and accommodations.”

As an indie artist, there are many jobs that Stone has to cover himself. He says that these include writing, practicing, recording, editing, booking, scheduling, rehearsing, marketing and promoting.

“Fortunately, I’ve had the benefit of receiving financial support from my parents,” he says, explaining that if he had to work a full time job on top juggling

those duties, “It just wouldn’t be possible.” For this reason, he really values the consumers that don’t pirate or stream their music for free or for a flat rate.

There are more than enough things about Stone’s career to keep him going though. Having been in the music industry since 1999, Stone took a short hiatus from playing live shows during the past couple of years so that he could finish a music degree at Carleton University in Ottawa. But the thrill of playing shows will always be a love of his, and he will be doing so again in the next few months. “I have to say I’m looking forward to it, I love the feeling of having a captive audience,” he says.

Ultimately, his goals as a performing and recording artist are to be able to make a solid living with enough to support a family. Travelling the world while he performs and sells his records at shows is the dream. “I’ve always wanted to make a prosperous living doing what I love,” says Stone, “And to live happily doing it.”

arts + Culture

A Neverland of options SPRINGBOARD THEATRE PRESENTS DARLING Carlo Javier × Writer Less than two years after graduating from Capilano University’s musical theatre program, Michelle Bardach, Kayla Heyblom and Katie Purych already have their own production company, and a musical ready to boot.

“It’s like Peter Pan like you’ve never seen it before,” says Purych.

After discouragement due to the sheer lack of theatre jobs in Vancouver, they decided to work together and produce their own show. “There are so few opportunities in Vancouver to perform in theatre,” says Bardach, “There aren’t that many shows to go around, and when you look at the amount of graduates coming out of these programs. There’s very little opportunity, and there’s so many people.” By June of 2013, their production team, Springboard Theatre Productions, was already registered as a company, and now they’re bringing Darling to Canadian soil.

Straight out of New York, Darling is a play written by musical composition graduates Ryan Scott Oliver and Brett Ryback. Loosely based on J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, the musical tackles darker and grittier subject matters such as drugs, sexuality and a society stranded in the crashed economy of the Great Depression.

The story’s first act takes place a few weeks

before the Great Depression of 1929 in Boston, where teenager Ursula Morgan runs away from home due to her business-minded stepfather.

She winds up meeting the alluring Peter, who introduces her to the underground world of jazz, speakeasies and a mysterious powder simply known as “Dust.”

Darling’s heavier and more serious undertone marks as a change from most of the vibrant and gleeful plays that the Vancouver audience have gotten accustomed to. “There are so many different types of audiences that want to see shows, and when it’s the same style or even the same shows that are always offered, it cuts out a portion of the audience that could attend the shows,” says Heyblom.

The musical delves into issues with family, particularly the relationship between an overbearing stepfather and his neglected daughter, and the strained connection between a police captain and his gay son. Though Darling is evidently more bleak than the classic Peter Pan, it’s not to say that the musical will not have an exuberant atmosphere to it. “We have a bar in the show, and the characters go to the bar during scenes, and during intermission, the bar is open to audience members, it’s going to be a working bar,” reveals Purych.

On top of being the show’s co-producers, Bardach, Heyblom and Purych also have roles in the play. Both Heyblom and Purych will be acting in specific roles and performing in the ensemble,

pour some sugar on me WHY WE CRAVE SWEETS Christine Beyleveldt × Writer Everyone is guilty of sneaking in a midnight snack at least once in his or her lifetime. Sometimes, it’s just too hard to fight the craving, and the more it’s thought about, the stronger the want grows. Those scrumptious bites fulfill our taste buds and the taste is more than satisfying.

Sugarcane in its raw, unpurified form is native to tropical Southeast America and the Philippines. The Spanish Conquistadors introduced it to European diets in the 15th century, which was known as the Age of Discovery. By the end of the 18th century, sugar consumption across Europe had soared, people were ingesting five times the sugar they were mere decades before.

As humans, sugar cravings naturally develop because the brain is wired to form an attachment to the sweet sensation. Sugar boosts the levels of serotonin, a compound present in blood platelets, and releases chemical opioids, a psychoactive chemical, in the brain. This process provides the energy humans often need.

“Sugar is a simple carbohydrate which is quickly absorbed through your small intestine and into the bloodstream,” says Diane Finegood, CEO of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, “As the sugar level rises, a hormone called insulin is released because it helps the cells in your body take the sugar out of the blood and into the cells where it is used as a fuel.”

Sugar is a natural addiction and the opioid release triggered by consumption is the cause of having a “sweet tooth.” The chemical opioids that

while Bardach serves as an alternate and will perform during the last two runs of the show. “One of the reasons we started to produce the show is because we wanted to give ourselves an extra opportunity as well,” Bardach says, “The three of us auditioned for the show, we told our director that we wanted to be casted as true as possible, and not to just give us the lead because we asked for them.”

Much like the characters of Darling, the three producers also faced some challenges before they got the show in production. Not only is Vancouver a tough city for actors looking for work, the nuances between acting and producing also proved to be an obstacle for Springboard Theatre.

“The three of us had never produced before, we’ve all come from a performance-based background. So there’s a lot to learn,” explains Purych.

Heyblom adds that the lack of experience in production work was a hurdle, as they simply didn’t know what to expect. “It is kind of a guessing game, because we’re all just going in with pure excitement but definitely not exactly sure about where we’re going to land,” she says.

Another challenge for the producers is the overload of responsibilities. Unlike bigger and more established production companies, Springboard Theatre cannot delegate tasks to employees as easily. Instead, the producers had to split the work among them.

“We were the ones that had to put the direction team together and the production team, the cast,

and the crew. We had to get sponsors, honestly, we have done everything you can think of, other than direct the show ourselves,” says Bardach.

Purych adds, “We set up the location, so we had to decide and do a bunch of research on what theatre we would use. We set up everything for the audition, we had to organize things like the liquor license, getting people to donate money, donate their time, costume and technical people like lighting, sound design, stage management.”

In the original Peter Pan script, Barrie wrote, “Just think of happy thoughts and you will fly!”

For Springboard Theatre, the same principle can be applied. It’s a company born out of the lack of opportunities and making something out of nothing. More importantly, it’s a production company looking to act as a springboard to many other actors in the city.

“Our first goal that we’ve ever had was that we wanted to be able to pay our actors,” Heyblom states, “In Vancouver, for a lot of community theatre, it’s just not in the budget to pay actors, it’s all volunteer. We wanted to see if we could make that work – that has been one of our goals. So far that has been very exciting to try.”

stimulate the sensation of pleasure are the same stimulants released under the influence of heroin or cocaine that causes addiction.

When taste buds are introduced to sweet and sugary substances, the nervous system is stimulated and signals are sent along neural pathways to the cerebral cortex, an area of the brain that responds to memory and perception, and in this case, the perception of taste. When this sweet sensation is activated in the brain, it sets off a series of signals which neuroscience refers to as the reward system. The reward system is specifically hard wired to respond to sensations of pleasure.

The action of reaching for a chocolate bar is a psychological response humans have when faced with upsetting situations. When drowsy or depressed, the kick obtained from sugar often helps people to feel that they are coping.

“Other things we eat can also be converted to energy, but in different ways,” says Finegood.

Sugar can be found in any diet including fruits, which contain high levels of fructose. Fibre and an assortment of vitamins can slow down the in-

take of sugar by the bloodstream, making it easier for the human body to ingest. However, when fruit is in preserves, jams or juices, the sugar content is often higher that that found in Coca-Cola.

Copious amounts of dopamine, a hormone neurotransmitter that powers the reward system, are scattered throughout the brain. When the reward system is over-activated, dopamine levels are imbalanced and cause the brain to yearn for pleasure-giving substances constantly. When cravings become uncontrollable, it becomes an addiction. Sugar works in this way and that kind of pleasure is why we crave it so strongly. Finegood believes that sugar is converted to energy to power our body functions.

There are an excessive variety of tasty desserts to keep the mouth watering and the brain restless for. There is no harm that can be done when enjoying sugar in healthy portions. It’s okay to indulge in those pies, brownies, cakes, ice cream, and cookies and whatever other sweets one’s body may desire. Craving isn’t always a bad thing, as long as it is controlled.

Darling will be playing at Renegade Production Studios from October 8 to 18. Tickets are between $20 - $25.

× Ksenia Kozhevnikova

Gabe: Apple Pie – 18g

Leah: Baby Cookies – 17g

Alva: Cheesecake – 24g

Christine: Key Lime Pie – 41g

Andrew: Lemon Meringue Pie – 27g

Carlo: M&Ms – 20g

Andy: Pumpkin Pie – 19g

Cheryl: Fruit Crumble and Ice Cream – 39g

Therese: Red Velvet Cake – 41g

Faye: Her Boyfriend – 200g

According to Statista Consumer Survey Statistics for 2013, the most popular dessert items by order of number sold in bakeries and restaurants rank from highest to lowest: pies, cheesecakes, ice cream, cakes, cookies, brownies, and finally to fruit crisps and crumbles. Generally, the higher the sugar content, the more popular those particular items were. While pies usually have a lower sugar count than most cakes, the variety of sweet flavours makes them a favourite.

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

Courier Faves!

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art shorts

ANDY RICE ART SHORTS EDITOR

MANAGER.CAPCOURIER@GMAIL.COM

Follow the Art Shorts team on Twitter @CAPCOURIERLIVE

childish gambino STN MTN/KAUAI Carlo Javier × Wannabe Rapper In the past year, rapper, actor and comedian Donald Glover has put out a considerable body of work to prove that he’s more than just a comedian turned rapper. Known to the world of hip hop as Childish Gambino, Glover fast-tracked his rise to the genre’s upper echelon with his seminal album, the experimental Because the Internet.

Now, with a double EP entitled STN MTN/Kauai, he not only reaffirms his deep-rooted affection for his home city of Atlanta, but also cements his status as rap’s premier crooner. STN MTN/ Kauai is a combination of two entirely different sets of songs. In STN MTN, Gambino raps over trademark beats from the south. He invokes the spirit of Atlanta’s most treasured artists such as OutKast and also pays tribute to contemporaries like T.I. and Lil Wayne, all the while admitting

VANCITY THEATRE, SEPT. 29

When you show up to a show in Autumn, chances are you're wearing a jacket and pants. So after claiming our tickets and smiling at the coat check staff we handed over our coats. "You guys are cute, are you a boy band?" Shucks... we all wore black shirts with beige pants. Good thing that's our uniform for having a super fun time. We grabbed our refreshments and made our way to the empty table at the front of the stage. Conversations, and spilled cheers kept us entertained until Vancouver band Ladyhawk came to the stage.

Ladyhawk has been a must in my music collection since hearing “The Dugout” on their 2006 debut album Ladyhawk. With several albums under their belts they played a little of everything.

Then an intermission, aka bathroom and beer

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

The Creation of Meaning is a simple and heartfelt documentary serves as a tiny glimpse into the struggle and quiet frustration that the people of Italy are faced with in relation to the corruption of government and their changing ways of life.

Directed by Simone Rapisarda Casanova and shot in the mountains of Tuscany near the Gothic Line, the film focuses on Pacifico Pieruccioni, an aging shepherd who has no choice but to abandon the only life he has known due to the economic dismay and hardship. The film contrasts the resilience the people once had and the will to defend their freedom, as they did against the Germans at the end of WWII, with the absolute lack of action against their now corrupt government. Simple

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

COMMODORE BALLROOM, OCT. 8

viff: the creation of meaning × Courier Film Critic

conversations in the film show there is anger and heartache, but that most of the country is unwilling to do anything about it. The younger generations of Italy are being left with less and less to grow up with while they watch foreigners move right on in. Whether fiction or documentary, films hit you harder when you can relate directly to the subject matter. My Nonno and Nonna, having grown up in Italy, can hardly bear going back to their birthplace because their family members that remain there have become lazy and have taken for granted the beautiful country they lay claim to.

Nobody wants to work or pay taxes — they just sit around doing nothing about the well-being of their own lives and their families’ lives. They’ve lost all sense of meaning in life, which reiterates Pacifico’s thoughts exactly. This is a real story and a real issue for the younger generations of Italy.

× Boy Band Member

break. It wasn’t long after I returned to my seat that a distorted guitar chord, and a drum beat recognized by the ears of the entire crowd, rang through the Commodore. What a song to open with — Constantines’ “Draw us Lines” from their 2005 album, Tournament of Hearts. If I was in the band I would have opened with that song also. But I'm in my own three-piece black top, beige pant boy band. Constantines have reunited to celebrate the 11th anniversary of Shine A Light.

Lead singer Bry Webb said it best when he addressed fans prior to the announcement of their tour. "What it all comes down to is this: There is too much love and too much life in this music for it to only exist in the past." If you are looking for something to better your music library, have a listen to these guys. It’s apparent after their show at the Commodore that their fans love them just as much as they still love playing music.

DJ Shadow + Cut Chemist COMMODORE BALLROOM, OCT. 9

viff: the creator of the jungle INTERNATIONAL VILLAGE, OCT. 5 Nicholas Cupelli × Courier Film Critic Directed by Jordi Morato,The Creator of the Jungle is a documentary that transports us into the life of 72-year-old Garrell, who for 45 years has been constructing elaborate hand-made structures in the forest of Catalonia, Spain. Garrell, working on his own, spent year after year building his jungle escape, ranging from a labyrinth of tunnels to high towers and tree houses, being made nearly entirely out of wood from the forest. This was his way of being able to constantly play and live wild. Revealed through footage shot by a young admirer, Aleix, we glimpse into Garrell’s wonderful personality and passion. Together they produced homemade Tarzan films, showing Garrell in his natural environment,

× Stephen Hare

Constantines Andrew Palmquist

Nicholas Cupelli

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his dream of one day running Atlanta – a counter to the rap’s oft-used self-proclamation as the king of somewhere. In Kauai he once again exhibits his talents in R&B, featuring beats that are reminiscent of The Neptunes and Frank Ocean, and a near complete abandonment of rapping.

As a whole, the dual album moves in a cohesive, conceptual manner. It continues on the story of “The Boy” that was introduced in Gambino’s first album Camp, and further elaborated upon in Because the Internet. For Gambino, the juxtaposition of the southern rap-influenced STN MTN and the R&B-heavy Kauai not only sufficiently represents his sound and style but also reflects his career. Despite the spit-fire radio freestyles, the acclaim and the album sales, the dichotomy between Donald Glover the comedian, the actor, and the rapper-singer Childish Gambino still remains among his most interesting qualities.

away from the civilized white man. The narrative is tied together beautifully using Garrell’s love for fire and water: fire being the end, and water being the beginning. Three separate times Garrell had to deal with the destruction of his jungle city — vandals destroying his work, a new highway being built, and governmental regulations were not enough to slow his wild soul. Each time he burned down his entire creation, he came back to rebuild it bigger and more elaborately than before, never resting, never losing his desire for play. Garrell shows us what is possible to achieve in a lifetime. Rather than being an ordinary person sitting on the couch every night, he chose to complicate his life with his hobby, proving there are no limits when it comes to one’s art.

Faye Alexander × Hip Hop Correspondent Don’t get it twisted — hip hop is not a synonym for rap, and DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist took to the Commodore stage to give Vancouver a history lesson. The eclectic set was performed entirely on vinyl – exclusively on loan from “the Godfather” of New York hip hop, DJ Afrika Bambaataa, a driving musical force behind the ultimate introduction of hip hop to the international stage. Six turntables were spinning across the stage, with visuals of graffiti riddled trains billowing into the five boroughs of New York, and classic vinyl records flashing across the screen. The dying art of scratch DJing was revived as both DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, failed to miss a beat with their

synchronized rhythmic melding of music from across the span of history. The set proved that hip hop is truly an art form that can adapt to all flavours of the musical spectrum combining funk, disco, latin and countless more. Both DJs teamed up for this one-of-a-kind two-hour experience to present a musical narrative of the evolution of hip hop music. The crowd was vibing out and looking immensely Caucasian. Despite the funkafied diversity of the set and the infectious dance beats, Vancouver did what was expected — the audience stood collectively in place, bobbing their heads with some serious mean mugs. The set was laid thick with nostalgia and perfect scratch companions on the final date of this groundbreaking tour.

Everyone was injected with vintage vibes by these renegades of rhythm.

Calendar Mo

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Alt-J

Free Yoga

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F

for ToFurkey Time

or TurDuckEn!

Jungle

Mike Doughty's Question Jar Show

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BC Dance 6 pm – 7 pm $ - free?

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The Imperial 8 pm $20

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Biltmore Cabaret 7 pm $20

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News about this band from Leeds, England, has been filling up my Facebook feed for weeks. Who knew I had so many hipster friends that could not wait a second longer for their new album This is All Yours to drop. And now they are on tour, playing songs from this new coveted album. Apparently, it’s sold out, but scalpers make great friends.

Yoga is so freakin’ expensive these days. I don’t understand how you’re expected to remain calm through the entire class when you just forked over an insane amount of money to do the downward dog right behind a sweaty person. Then you spend the rest of the class wondering how you’re going to afford the class. But this sounds like the better way to do yoga – it’s free. For more info, visit Theyogiapp.com.

“Jungle” used to be the password to all of my email addresses in 2002. I have five of them – one for every guy I was messaging on MSN Messenger. So if you wanna break into one of them, try roxygurl_hotstuff@hotmail.com, and see where that gets you.

You’d probably be more successful to see this soulfunk collective at the Imperial. It sounds more fun than breaking into a shitty email account.

This is basically what it sounds like: Mike Doughty and his sidekick Andrew “Scrap” Livingston put out a jar, audience members put questions in it, and they answer them in between performing their songs. It’s like a cheap man’s fortune-teller. I’m going to ask if someone will ever love me. Maybe this will prompt someone to like me beyond a Tinder date.

Career Cruising Workshop

Nick Swardson

Banks

Fully Committed

Library 316 12 pm – 1 pm $ - your lunch time snack

W 15

Vogue Theatre 7 pm $39.75

W 15

Commodore Ballroom 8 pm $25

W 15

Havana Theatre 8 pm – 9:30 pm $25

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Are you one of those kids who knew what they wanted do from the age of six? The “I’m going to be a doctor!” kind of kid? If so, then good for you.

The rest of us, who really don’t have much of a clue, should check this out. It will have information, resources, and tools to help you find your dream profession. Plus it’s free, and that makes it all the more awesome.

Have you seen a photo of this guy? I’ve only seen it as an ad for this show in Vancouver, but his face looks like the exact face you’d expect from an amateur comedian. Goofy, large, and constantly smiling. You have to wonder if this guy kept his face this way just to enhance his career. I hope not.

That would be unfortunate.

Seriously, how have I never heard of this singer before? Apparently she’s played Coachella, and is praised by FoxWeekly as the “artist to watch.” When I first heard of this event, I thought that multiple bank managers from CIBC, BMO, and Scotiabank were getting together to talk about the difference between their institutions. This sounds way better than that, and I promise to improve my music knowledge for future calendars.

Did you know that the little Havana restaurant on Commercial Drive has a small but awesome little theatre attached to the back of it? Fully Committed, starring Shane Snow, is a play about the food industry. Apparently this one guy plays over 40 characters – that’s a shit ton of costume changes.

Also, Havana has fantastic sangria, which has been my beacon at the end of many bad days. So depending on how shitty my day is, I may be there.

Writing Centre Workshop

TGR's Almost Ablaze

Debra DiGiovanni

Fall in Love with Local

Cedar 140 12 pm – 12:45 pm $ - free

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Rio Theatre 8 pm $12

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The Comedy Mix 8 pm & 10:30 pm $20

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Pound & Grain 6 pm – 9 pm $10

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CapU has a writing centre that helps students write things that they don’t want to, like essays and such. So really, there is no excuse, with the exception of apathy, for any student to be bad at writing. This workshop focuses on using MLA and APA styles of documentation, which is annoying but essential to writing high-level essays.

Check it out.

Obviously, I use ski premiers as a catalogue of potential dates. They are exactly my kind of messed up: messed up hair, messed up knees, and messed up bedrooms. So TGR’s Almost Ablaze is the highlight of my social life for all of October. Plus they usually put out some good ski flicks, and they’re based out of Jackson, Wyoming. We all know how much I love Jackson fucking Wyoming.

Until writing this, I had no idea this chick was Canadian. Hailing from small-town Ontario, DiGiovanni has been on many shitty comedy shows, like Match Game. I do remember one joke about having to work out to properly get her bra on over her boobs. I still think that’s funny. So an entire evening with her has the makings of a great time.

Get at it.

This is a networking event that works as an “openhouse”, allowing vendors to set up booths for one evening and guests to sample all their work. It costs only $10 and it gets you in, with food and drink samples, and a tote bag, which by all accounts, is one hell of a deal. Smartest 10 bucks spent on a Thursday.

Bahamas

Kenny Rogers

Darling

Moody Amiri

Vogue Theatre 7 pm $25

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River Rock Casino 7 pm $79.50 +

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Renegade Production Studios 8 pm $20 – 25

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Presentation House Theatre 8 pm $28

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Canada’s favourite indie artist, Bahamas – aka Afie Jurvanen – is gracing the Vogue stage to promote his new album, Bahamas is Afie. His last album Barachords, was the soundtrack to the summer of 2012. There was many an afternoon spent camping under the influence of too many substances and that album on repeat for about 10 hours. It definitely annoyed some of the other campers.

Whoopsies.

This guy is the master of knowing when to hold them and knowing when to fold them. So much so, that he wrote an entire song about it and taught everyone else what he was meaning. My dad used to sing this to me as a lullaby. That’s why I grew up knowing exactly what holding and folding meant. Points for my dad.

So there are a bunch of CapU Musical Theatre grads who are producing a play called Darling.

From what Carlo says, it’s a kind of dark rendition of Peter Pan. It was written in New York, but these guys are putting it on for the first time in Canada.

Go support your fellow CapU alumni doing cool things. Life after Cap exists.

Amir Amiri and Richard Moody are Moody Amiri, which makes the most sense in choosing a name – just combine them all. Presented by the Cap Global Roots performance series – I hope that’s what it’s called – this santur/viola duo will be serenading an audience at North Van’s Presentation House Theatre.

Why not be among them, and find out what the hell a santur is?

TEDxVancouver

Big Freedia

Sloan

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

Queen Elizabeth Theatre 8 am - 6 pm $99

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Cobalt 9 pm $15

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Commodore Ballroom 8 pm $28.50

S 18

Biltmore Cabaret 8 pm $13

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TEDxVancouver is back for a fifth instalment, and it is bigger than it ever has been before. This collection of events is connected by the theme “Tilt”, “a concept that challenges the status-quo and the engrained patterns of the human psyche.” I hope these will be on Netflix in the next six months because I won’t be able to afford the ticket. Or someone can go and take notes for me?

The Cobalt has become somewhat of a staple in the LGBTQ scene in Vancouver. It’s probably why I always have the best time whenever I go there.

Big Freedia is known as the Queen of Bounce (maybe she likes R. Kelly as much as I do) and is performing songs from her new release, Just Be Free. This just sounds like a rad and freeing time.

Another revival of a classic Canadian band. All we need is for The Tragically Hip to announce a new tour and we will have seen them all perform this fall. Maybe they are all at the age where their kids are entering university and they are realizing that they can’t pay for a their kids’ education on a 20 year old rock star salary. Tour again, boys. It’s your retirement plan.

No, this is not a rap performance by Dale Earnhardt Jr’s kid. This is an indie-pop duo from Detriot, comprised of two dudes, Daniel Zott and Joshua Epstein. From what I’ve seen on YouTube, they sound rad, and after meeting someone super cool from Detroit, I’m testing a theory to see if everything that hails from that city is as rad. With a name like this, I’m thinking this band will be, too.

Musical Brunch

Kat Edmonson

Kitsilano Farmers Marker

Rookie Night

Trout Lake Community Centre 12 pm – 2 pm $25

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Music plus eggs, plus bacon, plus orange juice plus more music – what a Sunday morning. Cure your hangover while supporting the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign at the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Eat eggs while listening to gospel and choir leader Brian Tait. I’ll be the one wearing sunglasses inside, and announcing that I “never want to drink again.”

Rio Theatre 7 pm $20

Su 19

This chick is an American Idol vet from 2004, back when it was still legitimate and cool. She also coined the term “vintage pop” to describe define the type of music that she makes. Basically making her own niche market. My business instructors would love her.

Kitsilano Community Centre 10 am – 2 pm $ - free

Su 19

It’s getting cold which means that it’s nearing the end of fresh vegetables and most of the summer farmers markets. This is the last time the Kitsilano Farmer’s Market will set up for the season, so take advantage of the local food and veggies before the Jolly Green Giant peas are the only green thing you eat for the winter. And bring us some, we could use some vegetables other than the ones that are on top of our pizza.

Vancouver Theatre Sports League 7:30 pm $8

Su 19

It takes some guts to get up in front of a crowd of people and try to be funny. Hell, I can’t even tell a good joke on a Tinder date. So these guys must have a shit ton of courage to get up and perform funny things in front of an audience. If you got nothing else going on, try it. Sounds like a good place to take a Tinder date – they will be funny so you don’t have to be.

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Sa

Orpheum Theatre 6:30 pm $39.50 – 49.50

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FEATURES The Vancouver housing market almost has a life of its own. It’s perpetually shrouded in a cloud of mystery, as analysts, agents, buyers and sellers track its next move and try, as best they can, to predict whether it will stay healthy. Recently, reports have surfaced that blame foreign investors for driving housing prices up and creating a housing market bubble.

Some speculators are nervous that this bubble

FAYE ALEXANDER FEATURES EDITOR

S P E C I A L F E AT U R E S @ C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . C O M

ver, the vast, vast majority of homes are being sold to people who live, work and raise their families in Vancouver, not to foreign investors,” says Muir.

tremendous upward pressure on land prices, and that’s really what’s driven affordability or mortgage affordability in Vancouver,” he explains.

THE DRIVING FORCES

LOCAL EXPECTATIONS

There are multiple forces responsible for driving up housing prices, and ultimately, it is a combination of these factors that creates the current market

With all of the driving factors behind housing prices, Vancouver can be an intimidating marketplace for first-time buyers. And while they may

condominium and then maybe move up to a two bedroom or a three bedroom, and then move up to a townhouse. And then maybe to a small lot, single attached house and then up to a bungalow – there are many more housing types out there, which affords options, particularly for first time buyers.”

Muir believes that people need to be realistic when entering a market, and understand that

Leah Scheitel × Editor-in-Chief

could potentially crash, creating economic uncertainty in Vancouver and impacting other important economic sectors. Yet, there are many economic theories and financial safeguards at work attempting to minimize the consequences of the housing market. After the US sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2008, where banks were easily lending money to people who normally wouldn’t qualify for loans, the real estate market has learned to be a bit more humble.

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THE FOREIGN INVESTOR

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Many groups have pointed to foreign investors as the primary reason why Vancouver housing prices are so high. Many news sources, such as CTV News, the Georgia Straight and CBC News have published stories about foreign money, mostly from Asia, snatching up Vancouver’s prime property. The sad part about the reports is the claim that downtown condos purchased by foreign investors remain empty, while local Vancouver residences face housing shortages and high prices. A local politician, Meena Wong, who is running for mayor of Vancouver in November, has used this issue in her mayoral platform.

"It's unacceptable that empty properties are out there, in the city facing such crisis on affordability on housing," she told CBC News in late September, "If they're not going to occupy it and then rent it out, then pay more so we can use those monies to build and develop affordable housing here.”

Wong’s outspoken stance on this issue has gained her traction in the race, and she is not alone in her thinking. The CBC also interviewed Joy Mo, an immigrant from China who can’t afford a house because the market prices are too high. “She thinks the way to go is an extra premium — a tax — for offshore buyers, similar to the 15 per cent tax on non-residents that Hong Kong has implemented,” said the 2013 news report.

What’s interesting is that while buyers are feeling the crunch and effects of high market prices, there is no hard data or evidence to support this claim. Different organizations have tried to discover if the condos bought downtown by foreign investors sit idle for months by monitoring their electricity costs or reviewing census data, but it is not conclusive enough evidence. Along with this, the BC Real Estate Association’s numbers don’t match this claim.

“No, when we look at the overall – the data we have doesn’t support the idea that foreign investors are a worrisome segment in the Vancouver marketplace,” explains Cameron Muir, the chief economist for the Vancouver Real Estate Association.

“In fact, the number of sales that go to foreign investors from all sources is actually a small fraction. We look at the monthly basis in Vancouver, it’s typically about one to four per cent of sales are to foreign investors – not enough to really sway a market the size of Vancouver.

“If you look at who is buying most in Vancou-

demand. As Mahak Yaseri, an economics professor at Capilano University explains, it’s the different factors behind supply and demand that decide the price. “It’s a whole sort of umbrella of things that could then be a factor if people are choosing to stay some place to buying a property for investment purposes. So I would argue that perhaps one of the important drivers of price of houses is clearly, as we have seen, is the costs of financing a mortgage – the terms of the mortgage in terms of how much down do you have to pay.”

Yaseri also credits the cost of borrowing money, more commonly known as interest, and potential growth expectations as important aspects to the health of the market. “[With] debt in general, interest is how borrowed money gets better treatment – that contributes to demand for housing and then the price of the house. I think some of the factors on the demand side are income and interest rates, the tax treatment of these investments, expectations of future possibilities and then of course, the supply side reasons as well. That could have something to do with limits on expansion, environmental rules and regulations, cost of building getting permits, etc. Those things can also be drivers of supply and therefore the price. Even things as basic as raw materials and the price of land can drive prices.”

Both Muir and Yaseri agree on one Vancouver’s features as to why it’s an intense housing market: it’s simply a beautiful and attractive place to live.

“Prices are high in Vancouver, and the reasons why they are high are again, we got limited land supply in the face of growing population, and it’s also a desirable place to live so it attracts a lot of people. For example, if we look at Vancouver, we shouldn’t really be comparing Vancouver to Winnipeg. We should be comparing Vancouver to a global gateway city such as San Francisco or Sydney, Australia. And in those housing markets and in those cities, housing is very expensive as well,” says Muir.

“You’ve got a region in Canada – first of all, you have a place that is very, very safe to invest, so you have attractions. You have the best weather that’s appealing to immigrants,” explains Yaseri, “Canada is a good destination for immigrants. Some of them come – not all, I don’t know what the rates are, but a lot of them come and want to invest, and that could be a driving force behind why Vancouver is doing better than other regions, because it’s definitely a very attractive place.”

According to Muir, the biggest problem for the Vancouver market is the geographical constraints it faces by being in the location that it is. “When we look at affordability in Vancouver, or the lack of affordability, the real culprit is land supply.

Vancouver is constrained – and we are talking about metro Vancouver here – is constrained by the mountains to the north, the agriculture land reserve to the east, the border to the south and the Georgia Straight to the west. And as a result, given relatively strong population growth, it puts

want to live and work in their ideal neighbourhoods, the financial reality may not allow for it. Just because there are more housing options offered now than there ever have been before doesn’t mean that buying a house in Point Grey is a viable option for many local buyers.

“Now the issue of affordability in Vancouver is, certainly when you look at homes on the West side of Vancouver or the most expensive markets, and how out of reach they are, typically they have been out of reach to the average buyer for generations. It’s nothing new. Buying a detached home in Point Grey is not a starter home for most people,” says Muir.

“One thing that has happened in the Vancouver housing market in the last couple of decades is that the housing stock is more diversified now than it ever has been. There are lots of options for buyers out there. Historically, you had a – the first time buyer house is a bungalow, and then they’d move up to a two-story home and then they’d move to a two-story home and a pool, which would be their executive home. Well that’s much more diversified today,” he explains, “First time buyers start out with an apartment

there may have to be some initial sacrifices, such as size of home or location, in order to buy a house in the Vancouver area.

“Vancouver city proper is an expensive place to live, and will continue to be so. And many families, as they have for many generations, have looked farther afield to find affordable housing.

For example, you could buy a condominium apartment in Surrey or Langely for $250,000 all day long. So it’s not that housing isn’t affordable in the region, it’s that it’s not as affordable as people would like in the locations in which they would prefer to live.”

A FRAGILE BUBBLE Vancouver has long been rumoured to be in a real estate bubble, where house values rapidly increase until they are no longer sustainable and crash, ultimately losing all of their predicted values. This creates concerns of what would happen to the market if it were to ever burst. After the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis in the US, where a real estate bubble burst and created reactionary contractions

"When we look at the overall – the data we have doesn’t support the idea that foreign investors are a worrisome segment in the Vancouver marketplace.”

ON the Cover

tierNey milNe Tierney Milne is in her final year of the IDEA program, and is looking forward to having enough free time to craft and draw to her heart's content.

In the meantime, check out Tierney's instagram @tierneymilne for a daily dose of colour and cute stuff.

× Tierney Milne diaries and investment banks were making up new packages of loans with little regulations or securitization to lend more money to a hungry surplus of borrowers.

“More money was being channeled not through the traditional banking areas, but through what they call these shadow bankers, which were not regulated, and they were designing products that nobody understood,” says Yaseri, “They were inventing things all the time, and people did not know what they were. This was financial engineering run wild. You got mathematicians, you got people at investment banks and they were designing products that people didn’t really understand.

Too much leverage cumulated into this bursting of the bubble.”

When a market as large and important as the housing market crashes, it decreases investment spending, which is one of the four overall factors impacting gross domestic product (GDP).

Decrease in investment causes a decrease in jobs, a decrease in tax revenue and a decrease in consumer spending (which makes up approximately 50 per cent of the GDP). A down flux in the industry also causes the bank’s wallet to tighten

– the cost to borrow increases and the banks start calling in on their assets that are invested in the borrowers’ homes.

“If the price of houses go down, then imagine all those banks that have lent money to people, suddenly they see that the value of their assets are declining, and that’s going to reduce lending. Because now, it’s not just about you and I, it’s the balance sheet of the bank that has those mortgages,” Yaseri explains, “When you bought the house it was $200,000. You only put in $20,000 so they bank gave you $180,000. Within a year the value of the house drops to $150,000, you cut your losses and tell the bank, I can’t do that. You’re debt is still 180, even though the house is only worth 150.

So basically, the bank has assets that are now worth less, so they are going to lend less. So that’s going to hurt the rate of interest. So that’s going to create another wave of contraction within the economy.”

But Muir, who has been working in the Vancouver market for over a decade, doesn’t see much evidence to support a market bubble.

“There is no evidence that Vancouver is in a housing bubble. There is no rampant speculation – home sales are tracking on average levels.

Apartment condominium prices have only started to gain traction this year, and over the past three or four years, condominium prices have been flat in Vancouver, so there is really no indication of any kind of housing bubble in Vancouver. Granted, there is some strong upward momentum on single detached homes in the most desirable locations in the city. And that’s obviously driven by the luxury market, and is driven by different fundamentals than the market at large,” he says.

Entering the housing market is intimidating. It’s a large sum of money that buyers and borrowers invest trustingly in an uncertain market. There are many factors that contribute to the overall price of a market, and while foreign investors have an impact, the numbers and research is too young to support this theory. But as long as the Vancouver mountains continue to mesmerize both local and foreign investors, the market will likely be able to survive any economic ebbs and flows.

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in the economy, many people are wondering if the consequences would be as severe in Vancouver.

“The US market, the bubble, was a result of a convergence of a number of different things.

Some groups have pointed to low interest, credit.

Some have blamed monetary policy in the US, but some of it was because foreigners were putting their money into US assets, not just bonds and stocks, but US property,” explains Mahak.

At the beginning of the US housing market crash, there was a lot of money coming into the country and money was cheap to borrow. There was also a misplacement of trust and confidence in markets. Investors were not keen on the stock market after the 2000 dot-com crash, and were looking for a different market to invest in – housing.

“People who wouldn’t normally qualify for a mortgage, but there are so much funds that are coming in and credit was so easy that in order to tap into the new sub prime borrowers, they offered them low teaser rates. All of this was happening at a time where there was a lot of confidence in regulation. It seemed that markets were doing just fine without regulation.”

This snowballed, and soon financial interme-

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FEATURES

FAYE ALEXANDER FEATURES EDITOR

S P E C I A L F E AT U R E S @ C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . C O M

Alva Tee × Arts + Culture Editor

"Wearable interactive devices are going to increasingly come to market over the next few year s”

× Kelsey Holden When the guidelines for imagination and creativity are crossed the result is bound to be the invention of something miraculous. In this digital age, almost every single person owns a piece of technology they are more than just a little attached to. Technology has been engraved into our lives in one way or another and now the revolution of wearable technology is flooding in.

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iWATCHING YOU

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An Apple Watch is said to be released by midFebruary 2015 by Apple, the multinational corporation claimed to be the world’s second largest information technology company. The creation of the Apple Watch is to ensure that those who like the features of the iPhone can get the same access to everything they need, all readily strapped to their wrists. What differentiates the Apple Watch from the rest of the smart-technology gear made by rival companies is how the apps can specifically cater to one’s wants and needs. It’s thinner, lighter and more efficient to have it all right at your wrist.

Though the actual product has yet to be released to customer for purchase, there have been more than enough promotional videos and prototypes for people to get a look for themselves.

James Holder, a self-employed technology specialist at NuLogic, believes that though in the future it could become something extremely useful and ridiculously efficient in our lives, right now it is “a less efficient way of managing connections with the world around us than what we currently have.”

“With the Apple Watch in particular, I find the screen to be too small, and the user interface to be a bit too clustered,” says Holder, “I don’t believe

we need it, as we truly need very little.” The line between needing technology to be a part of everyone’s lives and realizing that it is just a useful tool seems to be blurred more and more each day. Due to high price points and the reasons that they are built, Holder himself would not be interested in becoming an owner of any smart gear.

“I can see why many people are extremely excited for this new technology,” he says, “but it doesn’t do anything I personally wish I could do, that I can’t without them.”

DETECTIVE NAILS Undercover Colors is the first fashion company empowering women to prevent sexual assault.

Four male university students have come up with a clear-coated nail polish that when dipped in a drug infused beverage, turns a different colour indicating that the drink has been tampered with.

It’s used to detect three of the most common date rape drugs: GHB, Ketamine, and Rohypnol.

“Obviously there is a need for some type of invention to help combat the use of date rape drugs,” says Dr. Carman Neustaedter, assistant professor in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University.

Beyond prevention, Undercover Colors could also be used as evidence if an incident were to happen. “I think the idea is clever. It takes a part of our body that we wouldn’t normally think about as a ‘testing’ object,” he says.

However, Dr. Neustaedter also points out that whenever some sort of technology is designed, the social situation it is to be used in needs to be taken into account. “You need to ask yourself, are all the actions I would take natural and how would they affect the social situation?” he says,

“In this case, one would need to ensure she is in a position to actually dip her nail in her drink without being noticed.”

Dr. Neustaedter says that it would be challenging because in time, men would learn about the invention and start to watch for women casually dipping their nails in their drinks, so any sort of “testing” would need to be very subtle. “The challenge with nails is that they face outwards on our hands,” he says, “Coloured nails are fairly easily noticed. Something on the interior of our hands might be much more easy to conceal.”

But as women often hang out in groups in party-like environments, they could easily check their drink using their nail then and not be noticed by a perpetrator. “Of course, any design idea in this situation is likely better than no idea, given the very serious nature of the crimes,” says Dr. Neustaedter, “And this type of invention will likely help to stop a portion of rapes.” As it is a very serious situation that has been around for years, he says, “It is great to see someone trying to tackle it with a novel approach.”

RING THE MUSIC UP The iRing brings a whole new definition to interpretive dancing. While moving your hands naturally to the sound of music, the ability to create music at the same time is now a possibility. Much like the well-known Microsoft Kinect or Nintendo Wii, hand gestures are used to track movements and create sound through an app. Sensitive dots on the ring correspond with different motions to produce and create unique sounds.

With music on the side as a hobby, Holder expresses that he really loves the idea of this. “It could potentially generate musical ideas that simply could not exist without it, and that is always a good thing,” he says.

The iRing is not the first breakthrough in helping to create music easier. “I recall seeing a video where the bassist used gloves that had a motion tracker in his palm,” says Holder, “He had custom created an app on his phone to track it and could control all of his effects just by how open his hand was when he played.”

Technology can be used to discover strategies otherwise undiscoverable – and that is absolutely brilliant. It is something to be careful about though, especially with something as pure as music. “I can see it being yet another way of distancing ourselves from more honest music,”

says Holder, “I’m afraid that music, among many other industries, is becoming too digitalized and too perfect. Once you start to take away the allowance for human error, you start to lose honesty and the ability to connect with music.”

BFFL (BRACELET FACEBOOK-FRIENDS FOR LIFE) At Tomorrowland, a large electronic music festival held in Belgium, ticketholders were each given a bracelet. After registering it with Facebook, they were able to press a heart-shaped button simultaneously with another bracelet buddy within close vicinity and a friendship email would be sent both ways.

Bracelets that are interactive have been around for over a decade in the human-computer interaction research community so this idea comes as no surprise to Dr. Neustaedter. “Wearable interactive devices are going to increasingly come to market over the next few years,” he says, “This is the next trend in computing. People have been studying how to design them and how to use them to simplify tasks.”

While Dr. Neustaedter thinks the simplicity of this could be good for those that have closer relationships already, it is also a concern that it might be too easy for those that may be strangers. “The nice thing about the steps needed to add someone as a Facebook friend normally is that it takes a bit of time, time to reflect on whether or not this is a good thing to do. Sometimes making something simple and faster isn’t always the way to go.”

No matter if it’s increasing everyday efficiency, dealing with serious situations, enhancing something you love doing, or making social interactions easier, technology is a prominent part of everyone’s life living in the first-world of the 21st century. The struggle is finding the line between what is really needed and what is not. Dr. Neustaedter and Holder both agree that new inventions could be really good for the world. “We are going to increasingly see technology embedded in the world around us without us realizing it,” says Dr. Neustaedter.

Consumers are the ones who truly have the power to steer the future of technology. “If we purchase and support the products we truly think are good, then companies will recognize what we want and will cater more specifically to our needs, rather than what we believe our needs to be,” says Holder, “We can control where this goes, and I for one, am optimistic about where it could go.”

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opinions

GABRIEL SCORGIE OPINIONS EDITOR

OPINIONS@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

stand under my umbrella HONG KONG CITIZENS PROTEST ELECTION LAWS Simon Thistlewood × Writer Citizens of Hong-Kong are currently in an active state of rebellion. On Aug. 31, the Chinese Legislature’s standing committee decreed that it would not permit open nominations in Hong Kong’s 2017 election, instead insisting that any and all nominees must be vetted by the Beijing based central government. By doing this, the Chinese government has blocked any possibility of a free election. The protestors occupying the streets demand open elections as well as the resignation of the current Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-Ying. Anyone who opposes totalitarian systems should support those who continue to struggle for emancipation on the streets of Hong Kong.

This current protest emerges from a historical search for democracy and self-determination.

Following the first opium war, Hong Kong became a British colony, and remained under its custody for 155 years, interrupted only by Japanese occupation during the Pacific War (194145). As the result of an agreement signed in 1984, political power in Hong Kong was given to the People’s Republic of China, and became a

“Special Administrative Region” on July 1, 1997, under the governing principle of “One Country, Two Systems.” In 2004, Beijing decided that its approval must be given before any changes can be made to Hong Kong’s election laws, the effect of which is being protested today, in what some are now calling the umbrella revolution.

Following the declaration regarding the elections, the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) launched a strike, boycotting classes and occupying Civic Square. The initial protestors numbered around 13,000. In retaliation the police used pepper spray and illegally arrested student leaders. This outraged more of the general population of Hong Kong who surged to join the students in a show of solidarity and support.

The police responded again by using pepper spray and tear gas. This strategy further backfired as the following day even more Hong Kong citizens joined the ranks of the protestors, bringing their numbers to over 100,000. The authorities changed tactics, realizing that their use of indiscriminate violence had turned the city against them. Now, their strategy is to wait out the protestors. Currently, the number of protestors occupying central parts of the city number around 20,000. The authorities demand that the protests

stop, claiming they’re a disturbance to harmony, business, and social order - but the protestors are unwilling to leave before their demands are met.

Using the central district as the main site of the protests was initiated by a group called Occupy Central with Love and Peace; however it was the HKFS that initiated the large scale protests by overtaking Civic Square. The two groups now lead the protests together. The demands of the protestors are: free elections, the resignation of Chun-Ying, and Police Chief Tsang Waihung.

The protestors have been clear in these demands.

At this time, currently half of the seats in the legislative council of Hong Kong are reserved for “functional constituencies”, wherein economic sectors are guaranteed seats in the parliament.

While free elections would not eliminate the influence of industrialists, it would mitigate it and be a step towards the emancipation of Hong Kong citizens.

The Hong Kong government has tried to delegitimize and dismantle the protests. They’ve refused to negotiate and have made empty claims about creating an open dialogue. The authorities have also allowed the protests to become violent by allowing pro-Beijing residents and Triad affiliated gangsters to attack the pro-democracy camp.

Violence, drug use, and a lack of cleanliness have given the government an excuse to move in and clean out the protesting citizens as well.

What makes these protests different from the other large scale liberation movements people have seen recently is the emerging strength of the Chinese economy. Within the theatre of the Arab Spring, many of the states whose citizens pushed for increased freedoms received foreign aid from the US or were under threat of American military force. Egypt continues to receive a large amount of American money, as does Israel.

Even Russia was slapped with severe sanctions after its behavior in the Ukraine. It’s difficult to leverage such high degrees of international pressure against China. As the Chinese GDP is slated to overtake the US’s within the next few years, the Chinese regime faces much less pressure from the West. Many nations need the Chinese market more than it needs them, and with western governments doing little to critique the Chinese system of authoritarian capitalism, we are left offering only speeches and solidarity, so that the residents of Hong Kong face their struggle for emancipation alone.

forget you EZRA LEVANT SHOULD BE LEFT BEHIND Steve Tornes × Writer "He was a slut," began Ezra Levant, broadcaster for Sun Media. He was referring to Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, during a televised rant on his show The Source. "Both Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau were promiscuous," and using an on screen picture of Trudeau’s mother, Levant continued, saying:

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"We had to blur it out because, well, she didn't like to wear panties back then."

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Trudeau was, naturally, offended. He demanded an apology for this personal attack saying that Levant's tirade was "beyond the bounds of discourse." Moreover, Trudeau refused to accept questions from reporters of Sun Media until he was given an apology for, as Trudeau's spokeswoman Kate Purchase said in an official statement, “the personal attack on the Trudeau family that was offensive and breached any reasonable measure of editorial integrity."

The main concerns about this debacle are if the segment was so offensive that Sun Media admits that it "should not have been aired," then why was it aired to begin with? Someone at Sun Media should’ve realized that calling a former Prime Minister a slut would be a bad idea. If they regret airing the segment, they should’ve apologized before Trudeau began boycotting them. And how can it truly be considered an apology if Levant, the actual perpetrator, has refused to apologize?

The excuse that Levant gave for his offensive rant was a wedding picture of Justin Trudeau kissing a bride on the cheek. The problem with Levant's pretext is that the groom asked him to give his wife a kiss and Trudeau has confirmed

× Megan Collinson that the husband didn't mind. For the bride and groom, Trudeau helped make their special day even more memorable. Levant, on the other hand, gave the wedding a bitter aftertaste, comparing the innocent kiss to the Wedding Crashers, "that sex comedy where slutty men go to weddings uninvited to bed the maid of honour." The fact that Levant can see a picture of Trudeau kissing a bride on the cheek and declare him to be lewd speaks more to Levant's

dirty mind than it does of Trudeau’s actions.

Without even an obligatory fact check, Levant created his own smear campaign.

Levant isn’t an idiot. He is a partisan caricature who twists simplicity into a disfigured reflection of his own interests. He creates controversy knowing that publicity, regardless of whether it is good or bad, makes him relevant. Sun Media aired an apology, saying, “The segment was in poor taste and should not have been aired. We

understand why so many viewers found both the content and language of this segment to be offensive. We apologize to Mr. Trudeau, his family and to our viewers." Trudeau has accepted the apology and will now again accept questions from Sun Media reporters.

It could argue that Trudeau's boycott should have been targeted at Levant rather than at Sun Media. Levant himself gave that argument in an email to the Globe and Mail. However, it is doubtful that Trudeau would have gone on Levant’s show to begin with. And importantly, a news network should take responsibility for the actions of their media personalities. For a high profile personality to be so biased, the objectivity of Sun Media gets put into question.

These facts give the impression that the apology lacked sincerity. It's as if Sun Media wishes to be absolved of responsibility, but not lose viewership by making Levant apologize himself.

This isn’t the first time that Levant has plunged himself into controversy. Sun News Network was forced to apologize to an executive of the food company Chiquita by the Canadian Broadcast Standards after Levant told the executive to “go fuck your mother” in Spanish. He was also investigated by Toronto police for a televised hate speech against the Romani people. After the Crown attorney recommended charges be pressed against Levant, he apologized and the matter was dropped.

The fact that Sun Media still employs such a controversial public figure is disconcerting. The issue isn’t whether Levant should give an apology or not. The issue is whether people will continue to tolerate a news network which seeks to sensationalize rather than inform and whether people will accept a style of journalism which pushes a political agenda regardless of validity. If people don't move on, Levant will become relevant again by doing something even more outrageous.

opinions

buckle up PAYING THE PRICE FOR TRAGEDY Faye Alexander × Features Editor

pro CSU

× Guillem Rovira

Earlier this year on a New Jersey turnpike, an exhausted Walmart truck driver veered into a limousine. This crash resulted in the death of comedian James McNair and injured the rest of the passengers, including Saturday Night Live alumni, Tracy Morgan. The fatal crash took place following a stand-up performance by Morgan in Delaware. Morgan suffered a slew of injuries and endured weeks of rehab due to the accident. Now, Morgan and several other passengers are suing Walmart – yet the power house retailer has claimed that the comedian and his entourage only have themselves to blame for their injuries because they weren’t buckled in securely with a seatbelt.

Oh yes, had all the passengers in the limo been wearing a woven polyester strap around their collective waists, nothing lousy would have happened. Well, that’s what Walmart is hoping a judge will buy as a legitimate defense once the case goes to court. However, because the limo did a death roll down the turnpike and the impact of the crash took McNair’s life, it’s hard to imagine that Walmart can get out of all legal accountability on the tensile strength of the almighty seatbelt.

“I can’t believe Walmart is blaming me for an accident they caused,” responded Morgan in a statement issued following Walmart’s announcement of their defence. Morgan has continued to receive treatment following the incident for injuries to his brain, including daily speech, cognitive, vocational and physical therapies in hopes of a full recovery.

Yet Morgan’s lawyer, Benedict Morelli, has stated “The jury is still out on whether Morgan will ever be able to perform again.” However, Walmart is standing behind their belief that had Morgan and his fellow passengers been wearing seatbelts, this could have all been avoided.

Walmart has denied allegations of recklessness and negligence on their part and have stated that had the passengers been wearing safety restraints, “all or a portion of the injuries could have been diminished or minimized.” The truck driver who caused the accident didn’t just bulldoze the limo into a deadly crash; the accident also caused a six car pileup on the turnpike. If all the passengers had

revisiting the refferendum

pro cfs

LEAVING THE CANDIAN FEDERATION OF STUDENTS WAS A GOOD IDEA Christine Beyleveldt In March 2014, the Capilano Student’s Union (CSU) voted 77.6 per cent in favour of leaving the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS). Nearly double the referendum quorum turned out to vote, and over 1,400 ballots were cast. “There were a lot of really questionable behaviors that were happening on part of the CFS that we didn’t agree with.” said Brittany Barnes, external vice-president of the CSU in an interview with The Muse last month.

“We just didn’t feel like [our concerns] were being seriously considered.” The CFS has been criticized in the past for harsh political and economic views, and for forcing submission upon student unions.

The CSU provides for its members and fellow students through student services, resources for CapU’s clubs and campus committees, as well as hosting social events to engage students and promote political and academic welfare.

Nearly $80,000 were paid to the CFS in union fees annually and, for an organization that does not respect the individual views of students or even take

note of their primary concerns, the cost is not worth the reciprocated benefits. In leaving the CFS, what would otherwise have contributed towards membership fees is currently put towards CSU events, services and campaigns - many of which are similar to those offered by the CFS. The same events are subsidized by both the CFS and the CSU, but by having control over finances and how to govern itself; the CSU now has more freedom. According to student protesters, the CFS has taken advantage of its lofty position, and has become a “money-squandering bureaucracy.”

The CFS has had rough relationships with more than a few student unions across the country and has taken legal action on student unions hoping to terminate their memberships in the past. The CFS is all controlling, rarely allotting free speech to their members. “We were essentially gag-ordered on a lot of things,” said Barnes. Little was openly discussed between CFS and student unions, simply because unions are expected to follow protocol and conform to CFS standards and views. The tension could be cut with a knife, and honestly, who needs the stress of a micromanaging boss?

UNIFORMED STUDENTS MADE A BAD DECISION Michael Smith × Writer Everybody makes mistakes, and in March, 77.6 per cent of Capilano University students who voted in the referendum made a mistake when they decided to leave the Canadian Federation of Students. It’s not surprising that the students of CapU decided to leave the CFS after being told they were paying $80,000 to an organization that most students had never heard of. But then again, it was hard for them to promote their organization and educate students when every time they tried to call and book a table on campus — the only way organizations are allowed to set up at CapU – they got told by a member of the CSU that there were no tables available.

I’ll start with the CFS fees, because when a student hears that their university is paying $80,000 a year to the CFS and part that is coming out of their own pocket, it’s natural think the CSU made the right decision. However, let’s break down that number before we go hug Brittany Barnes. As a member of the CFS, each student pays $0.85 per credit with a maximum of $8.50 per semester. So a student who attends a university that’s a part of the CFS would

pay, at most, $17 per year. In comparison, Netflix, that streaming service everyone has because it’s nso affordable, comes out to around $80 a year.

Now that CapU students have saved themselves an extra $17 a year, let’s see where that money was going in the first place. Students’ membership fees went to funding student advocacy campaigns such as Education is a Right, End the Blood Ban and No Means No. These campaigns lobby for lower tuition fees, non-repayable loans, allowing LGBTQ community to donate blood and sexual assault. The CFS successfully lobbied for a National Student Grants Program to provide non-repayable financial assistance to students across the country. This has brought $500 million in student loan forgiveness to BC students, including CapU students, since 2004. Unfortunately, supporting these campaigns and being a part of victories like that apparently aren’t concerns for CSU members.

It’s too bad that now, when CapU students read about a CFS victory, they’ll know they didn’t play a part in it. The CSU does a fine job handling CapUrelated events. That’s their job. But by leaving the CFS, CapU has lost its federal voice, weakened its provincial one and hurt an organization that’s fighting for low tuition and equality among students.

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× Writer

been sporting seatbelts, it’s highly unlikely that no one would have suffered an injury or found cause to sue Walmart for the actions of one of their employees. The thing is, Walmart has no leg to stand on otherwise and this is the only defense they can muster up. No retailer wants to have blood on their hands, especially that of a celebrity who is drawing extra attention to the incident.

Following the accident on June 7, a report by the National Transportation Safety Board said that the truck driver, Kevin Roper, was travelling well beyond the speed limit and was nearing the limit of his legal driving time. Roper has admitted to being awake for more than 24 hours at the time of the crash. Being behind the wheel of a powerful vehicle without sleep is just as bad as driving drunk according to the experts.

“From the standpoint of impairment, it can be very similar,” said Dr. Adam Moscovitch, a sleep expert in an interview with CBC, who explained that being awake for 20 hours impairs driving ability as much as having a blood alcohol level of .08. Had Roper been drinking instead of nodding off, Walmart would be quietly settling as quickly as possible and Roper would have faced criminal charges.

“If it’s determined that our truck caused the accident, Walmart will take full responsibility,” was the immediate response by Walmart following the June crash, but now they’re hiding behind seatbelts. Morgan, along with his fellow passengers, was not doing anything wrong. They were merely on their way home from an event.

Had it not been for Roper’s recklessness and exhaustion, no cars would have been piled up on the New Jersey turnpike and it wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other if Morgan and his entourage were wearing seatbelts or not.

Morgan’s quality of life has deteriorated and one of his close friends lost his life because of the accident. If Walmart was ensuring their drivers were equipped to do their jobs, and monitored to make sure they’re not barreling down highways with no sleep – this could’ve been avoided.

It was Roper who caused the crash, and with that issue not remotely up for debate, Walmart needs to shut up and pay up for the impacts of their lack of responsibility. If Morgan is never able to perform again lies on the shoulders of Walmart and Roper.

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columns

LEAH SCHEITEL COLUMNS EDITOR

the mediator STREAMING IS DREAMING Ben Bengtson × Columnist × Samantha Smith Ben Bengtson is interested in all things media, but mostly how corporations are a part of our modern media way of life. Through his column, The Mediator, Ben will explore what aspects of media are thriving while others are decaying to change. His favourite movie is Dazed and Confused, and we think that's pretty cool.

Why would you ever pay for music on iTunes or purchase a CD when all your favourite artists are streaming online for free? It’s a compelling question, mainly because no one – not even diehard music fans or audiophiles – ever seems to know what to say. People who still pay for their music might say things such as, “I like to support artists” or “It feels more real when I buy the actual thing”. While this is admirable, the fact is people aren’t spending money on music like they once did; this has been the case for a while now. Music as content isn’t valuable the way it once was. Technology has destabilized music commerce indefinitely, and consumers have been left in the wake, forced to turn elsewhere to devour our precious content. These days we have a bevy

of options: there’s Youtube, Rdio, Spotify, Pandora, and of course the dubious act of downloading torrents. These are viable options, especially in a cultural climate that doesn’t appreciate the worthiness of digital music. For whatever reason, when music was robbed of its physical shape in the Napster era, the idea of paying for music going forward has appeared completely unimaginable. The music industry has managed to stay afloat, but in a time with seemingly limitless access to information and content, the way forward looks hazy.

Debate regarding the value of streaming services hit a high point last year, when Thom Yorke and Atoms For Peace pulled their album, Amok, from Spotify. Yorke argued that music streaming isn’t good for new artists. While there are varying viewpoints, most would agree that record labels are the ones that stand to profit, if you can really call it that, from music streaming, not musicians.

The laws that currently govern music streaming and its relationship to artists and distributers are fluid and complex, and constantly changing. These laws favour the back catalogues of record labels –

EDITOR@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

artists that first recorded ages ago, and have since recouped their costs and represent pure profit. Basically, someone who decides to stream The Dark Side of the Moon generates as much profit for the record label as someone streaming an album that came out yesterday. The game is rigged for those new to the industry.

Simply put, music streaming services are good for the consumer, the best possible solution for record labels, and not that good for recording artists.

Sure, we still see high-quality and creative content coming from our favourite artists – but for how long will this model be sustainable? David Byrne of the Talking Heads wrote a seminal article for The Guardian last year. Titled “The Internet Will Suck All Creative Content Out Of The World”, he convincingly argues that our addiction to cheap content might erode our artistic assets and demean the future of musical culture. Byrne talks about the movie industry to make his case, suggesting that if “the future of the movie business comes to rely on the income from Netflix's $8-a-month-streaming-service as a way to fund all films and TV production, then things will change very quickly.” It’s expensive to produce content, and whether the medium is film, TV, music, or written, somebody has to pay. While dolling out $10 per month to Rdio might seem like an admirable and affordable solution, these costs do precious little to combat the exorbitant expenses required to record music, especially in today’s landscape where artists might take years to write and record music that meets today’s expectations of sonic and creative quality. If no money is put into the industry, what possible incentive do recording artists have to produce content? Sure, artists will be

canadiana POVERTY IN CANADA Rosanna Hempel × Columnist

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

Rosanna Hempel has worked and lived in nearly every province from coast to coast. Thanks to this, she has an intimate knowledge of Canada. Her column will explore how Canada measures up to other countries on different topics. It’s basically a report card for the entire country.

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“Leave no one behind: think, decide and act together against extreme poverty,” is the theme of this year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, taking place worldwide on Oct. 17.

This day has been observed by the United Nations since 1993 and will highlight the need to eliminate the discrimination and marginalization of those living in poverty.

Poverty is a heavy word that is rather convoluted. As Canadians, we sometimes tend to disregard poverty as something that is present or an issue in our country. After all, we are relatively more privileged than most in the world.

Yet Canada has one of the highest poverty rates among wealthy developed countries according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and is experiencing an increase in income and wealth inequality.

Statistics Canada states that 12.9 per cent of Canadians and 11.4 per cent of older Canadians were earning low incomes in 2011; that is to say, their disposable income was less than 50 per cent of the median Canadian income, otherwise known as the pre-tax low-income cut-off (LICO).

On top of that, 14.2 per cent of children were living in poverty in 2008. Measuring poverty remains an area of contention, although generally speaking, we use LICO as a relative measure of

× Amy Mayer poverty in Canada. Regardless, these Canadians are earning incomes and living well below LICO. This is especially true in British Columbia, which has the second-highest poverty rate in Canada and the highest low-income gap (the extent to which average income falls below LICO).

It may come as no surprise that specific groups of Canadians experience higher poverty rates, such as Aboriginal Canadians, women, people of colour, recent immigrants and those with disabilities. For example, 31.2 per cent of Aboriginal Canadians and 38.1 per cent of single mother families were living in poverty in 2000, figures which sit well above the national average. Unfortunately, poverty rates are worse than what they were a decade ago. Although, rates for older Canadians have markedly improved from 30 per cent in 1984 down to 13 per cent in 2008, owing largely to pension reforms, among other factors.

Perhaps we can look to the Nordic countries who are way ahead of the game it seems, where

both Denmark and Sweden demonstrate the lowest figures for national poverty rates at 5.3 per cent and child poverty rates at three and four per cent in 2009, respectively. They also invest much more of their GDP into their social infrastructure, such as education and employment training, pension, and welfare. In 2010, Canada ranked 26th out of 30 wealthy developed countries, spending a meagre 16.5 per cent of its GDP versus Sweden’s remarkable 29.4 per cent.

Experts suggest poor social assistance benefits and housing, as well as current minimum wages, are major factors driving high poverty rates in Canada. According to the National Council of Welfare, current provincial social assistance benefits aren’t nearly sufficient to keep Canadians from living in poverty.

On top of this, “poor-bashing” occurs on a daily basis. Who hasn’t grumbled at panhandlers or the homeless in downtown Vancouver? Maybe even blaming them for the state of their situation.

artists – they simply must create! – but everyone has to make a living.

A lot of music being made today reflects this changing landscape. More and more, musicians make lo-fi, inexpensive recordings – anything to cut costs, to work around the confines of commerce and yet still sound “creative”. This is certainly a good thing. It’s wonderful that content creators, no matter the medium, strive to work around the limits of their industry. But we should worry more about how music streaming itself changes the way we listen. It can sound like the bemused ramblings of a Luddite, but many wonder what our limitless access to content does to the way we appreciate it.

A recent example is Apple’s disastrous stunt of rolling out of the new U2 album, Songs Of Innocence. Sure, the idea was good – everyone wants free music, right? But music streaming is about choice, and U2’s album that was forced on everyone’s iTunes account didn’t go down well. U2 and Apple still seem to believe that there is value in free content, which couldn’t be more wrong. Last week, for example, Thom Yorke released his second solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, for $6 on a paygated BitTorrent. Somehow, this $6 digital package felt like better value than U2’s free mess of an album. This is because in an Internet culture where everything is given to us, the only thing more valuable than a free album is an album priced at exactly what it’s worth. Our relationship to how we experience content is in flux. The bottom line is, people seem to want to pay for music again – they really do – but they just don’t know how to do it anymore.

Vancouver-based writer, Jean Swanson makes an interesting case on this point in her book, Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion. In a nutshell, she argues that poor-bashing only prevents us from exposing the public policies and laws that create or sustain our high poverty rates. On the upside, most Canadians acknowledge that governments are responsible for supporting people with low incomes, suggesting that this may be in the cards for Canadian policies in the future.

Other experts such as Dennis Raphael, author of Poverty in Canada: Implications for Health and Quality of Life, focus on our current electoral system as being a major factor in the prevention of more progressive social policies. Canada, Britain and the United States are the only main Western democracies using the first-past-the-post voting system, where success in elections relies on the candidate acquiring more votes than all others.

Countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, which use the proportional representation voting system, generally are more welfare state types.

After the last two Canadian federal elections in 2006 and 2008, Campaign 2000 – a child poverty advocacy group – shed some light on political party stances with regards to policies in favour of reducing child poverty. Most of the NDP’s platform aligned with the policy recommendations suggested by Campaign 2000, whereas the Conservative Party’s did not, aside from one. The Liberal Party positions and the Green Party were somewhere in the middle, showing support for childcare and some social housing suggestions.

Interestingly, Medicare – a source of great pride for Canadians – and public pensions came about during minority government rule, specifically in a time where the NDP held the balance of power.

It’s impossible to address all the factors and issues relating to poverty in one small article. All that can be said overall is that current Canadian policies are failing to ensure that all Canadians receive an acceptable standard of living. Rome wasn’t built in a day as they say, although with the federal election scheduled for next October, this is a major issue we should consider and support pronto.

columns

finding the goods GETTING TO KNOW BOARD OF TRADE CO.

Cianda Bourrel × Columnist Born and raised in small town, Grand Forks, BC, Cianda spent most of her youth surrounded by the great outdoors. She moved to Vancouver at the age of 18 to adventure and experience the city. She now resides in Chinatown, where the fruit is cheap and the alleys smell like piss.

Board of Trade has become one of Vancouver’s retail staples. The space is filled with good vibes and quality products, making for an all-round exceptional shop. Three friends, Armin Tehrani, David Lin, and Eunice Quan own the shop, and have combined their ideas into a unique boutique shop. Board of Trade has a distinct Vancouver feel, whether it’s through the product selection or the store aesthetic.

The first Board of Trade, located on Union Street, opened in Chinatown in 2011. With quick success, their Carrall Street location in Gastown opened a year later. Both stores share a similar feel, but vary in their customer base.

The main purpose of Board of Trade, in Tehrani’s words is, “to sell you things that we personally love. We try to find items, not just clothing, that we find interesting and original.” This motto has helped bring a distinct appeal to the Board of Trade shop, and the space is sure to be filled with aesthetically pleasing products that aren’t easy to find otherwise. Another concept behind the store is the focus on local artists. “Initially, Board of Trade Co. was meant to stand as a communal hub for fellow creatives and we’ve showcased that by collaborating with many different artists that have put their photos up on our walls, done painted installations and even constructed

a sculpture in our front window,” says Tehrani.

This really brings a community aspect to both locations, proving that Board of Trade stays true the Vancouver locals.

As most of us know, the Chinatown community is beginning to grow. It seems that maybe Tehrani, Quan and Lin saw this early on, and have had much success with their location. “There’s a lot of culture in Chinatown, which brings a lot of curiosity to the neighborhood…. It’s kind of a hidden gem in Vancouver, and slowly it [has] become more known to the public,” says Tehrani.

Despite the controversy surrounding the takeover of Chinatown by housing developments, it does bring more traffic and competitors to the local businesses. The area may seem to be losing grip of its true roots, but Chinatown is Chinatown, even if the brick is new and the alleys are clean-ish.

Although their first location was key, opening the second Board of Trade in Gastown was a smart move. The brands remain the same between the two shops, but are spread out accordingly as to attract the right customer in each neighborhood.

And despite the slight product diversity, the aesthetic of the store stays “Industrial with a little quirkiness,” in Tehrani’s words. The products lay beautifully on simple pressed-wood tabletops, while the rest hang from industrial steel pipe racks. The minimal fixtures bring attention to the product, and pretty much bring the whole Board of Trade atmosphere to life.

Since this whole article is about finding the goods, its time to talk about the goods. The Board of Trade product selection is cool because it’s about the smaller brands. “We look for upand-coming designers that aren’t as well known and we also carry lots of art objects such as ceramics from all over the world,” says Tehrani.

So it’s not about those things you will find in any other small boutique, but more about supporting the guys who don’t have a huge rep yet and are making exceptional products. Men and

× James Seville women’s apparel is sold in both locations, along with other small novelties that will catch your eye. Local brands are also hanging on the racks, such as Hendrik Lou’s handmade knitwear, and Muttonhead’s unisex clothing that is manufactured in Toronto. Board of Trade also has it’s own line, Priory of Ten, which is a perfect fit to the rest of the products in stock. Simple and small jewelry is placed perfectly on the heavy tables, and if you’re lucky you can run your hands over heavy hand-knit blankets. All said,

the product is beautiful, the shop is beautiful and the vibes are great.

It stands to reason that pretty much everything about Board of Trade is cool. It’s hard to come up with one thing that doesn’t make it exactly what I like in a shop. The product (chosen by good people), the excellent location and the community aspect are what make the shop what it is today.

Chinatown is rad and Gastown is the place to be, both good enough reasons to check out Board of Trade next time you put off that homework.

there are so many people in the world doing such incredibly stupid things that inspiration is all around me. However, an opinion article can be about almost anything, so if someone has an idea they really want to write about, all they have to do is drop by the office or send an email and I’ll be happy to let them write about it (hint hint).

I started writing after realizing I couldn’t draw.

Well, I didn’t realize I couldn’t draw — my preschool teacher highly recommended that I play at the arts and crafts table during free time. When I got older and entered high school, I started to write more because, like most people who write, I found it was a great way to express myself and work through problems. Since I began writing, I’ve gravitated towards opinionated articles instead of objective journalism (our beloved Editorin-Chief says this is obvious when I try to write features and news stories).

Authors like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Douglas Adams are major influences on not only my style of writing, but how to approach a topic in a unique way. If you ever want to read a good short story, Google The Private Life of Genghis Khan by Douglas Adams.

Every article I write starts the same way. I begin generating ideas by walking in a loop around my kitchen and living room, grabbing food from the fridge every time I pass it – my goal is to gain a

pound an article this year. I do this loop between five and 35 times, alternating between thinking of potential angles to write about, hating myself for taking the article, and wondering how my life has gotten to this point. Eventually, I’ll buckle down and start putting words on the page. I do this indiscriminately. For the first draft, there’s absolutely no standard of quality. It’s littered with sentences that don’t make sense, words that are made up and underscores where I need to put a quote or date in. The point is to get as many ideas, good or bad, on the page as possible before something shiny distracts me. After that, I go back and edit the mess that I’ve made, because if I sent my first draft to an editor, they would hurt me. Eventually, I end up with something good enough to send away to be edited and it moulds into an article like this.

As far as a career in writing goes, I have no idea what the future will hold. The end goal isn’t to make a lot of money doing it, but to be happy with what I do for a living. Even if I don’t make as much money as a writer, it’s better than working a nine to five job in an office. Right now, I love that I can tell people I’m a writer and editor at the Capilano Courier and hopefully I’ll be able to tell people that I write for a living even when I’m not spending my Tuesdays and Fridays staring out at the Maple Dumpster anymore.

staff editorial BEHIND THE WORDS Gabriel Scorgie × Opinions Editor

× Chris Dredinsky Opinions section, I browse articles on the Internet to find topics worth discussing. They can be as heavy as talking about misogyny and as light as complaining about text bubbles. Fortunately,

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If there are a few things that readers of the Courier have already learned about its staff, it’s that we drink, smoke and have developed a love-hate relationship with Tinder. What doesn’t get talked about often is what we do, how we do it, or why - except that pitch meetings are at 12 pm on Tuesdays by the Maple Dumpster and that we pay.

We don’t talk about the behind the scenes much because most of us are single — probably because we drink, smoke and use Tinder - and we’re trying to maintain an aura of mystery around us so people think we’re interesting and sexy, instead of seeing us as the functioning alcoholics we are.

Okay, maybe that’s only why I don’t talk about it.

I’m the Opinions Editor. I applied for the position because I love the controversial. I often find myself offending people at parties, winning games of Cards Against Humanity and mocking almost everybody I meet, since one of my favourite pastimes is sarcasm. My most offensive jokes I save for text conversations with select friends, but I do have strong opinions on controversial topics that I will readily defend if people bring the subjects up, and I like to back my opinions up with facts — something that really annoys people.

When it comes to finding pitch ideas for the

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CAp you

CARLO JAVIER LIFESTYLE EDITOR

Straight Flexin' INSIDE THE BIG BLUE BUILDING Alva Tee × Arts + Culture Editor

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

Capilano University’s Sportsplex is “one of the finest college sports complexes in Canada,” as it is written on Capilanou.ca. Often dismissed as the building to walk by to get to the big field, little do people know that it offers so much more than it looks.

The Sportsplex is not only home to numerous Blues athletes focused on different sports, but it offers all sorts of other physical activities as well.

“We offer drop in sports like soccer, basketball, volleyball, badminton, and ping pong along with programs like yoga, jiujitsu, karate and salsa,” says Ryan Lenarduzzi, Recreation and Sport Development Officer at CapU, “[We also have] a weight room and fitness centre.”

While student leaders from CapU coordinate drop in sports, professionals from each of the different fields instruct the classes. A roadblock the recreation team faces is the absence of a recreation fee as Lenarduzzi says this limits their offerings hugely.

“At almost every school in Canada, students pay a rec fee in their tuition to provide resources for rec programs,” he says. “With even $10 per student, we would have the ability to run intramural leagues and tournaments and hire more instructors.”

Even with this bit of financial struggle, the price for participation is still kept student-friendly. “Most programs are free,” says Lenarduzzi, “With the exception of specialty classes such as yoga and karate - still much cheaper than anything out there.”

Though CapU might only have a men’s basketball

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league, Lenarduzzi says that there are athletic teams competing on the weekend in basketball, volleyball, and soccer. “We invite fans out for $2 in entry,” he says, “Games are a lot of fun.”

Students are able to book the space when it is available as long as they contact the athletics department to ensure that there will be nothing else going on. The variety of programs are offered in hopes that the more students are aware of what the Sportsplex has to offer; the more the student population will participate in physical activities.

“What motivates me to stay active is how much better I feel when I get to sweat on a daily basis,” says Lenarduzzi, “After a workout, my head is clear and I feel energized.” He feels the best when there is a gym full of activities going on and everything is in full swing.

“Exercising for me is another form of meditation,” he says, “It focuses the mind on the present moment and allows you to release your thoughts and worries from the day.”

The process of getting involved in any of the Sportsplex activities is simple. Drop by and check out the different events they have posted and sign up for the ones that seem interesting to try. They also have an online website highlighting all of their activities and when they occur, “Come down, meet our welcoming staff,” says Lenarduzzi, “It is cheaper than the gym and right on campus!”

Visit Capilanou.ca for a full schedule of activities that occur.

CARLO.CAPCOURIER@GMAIL.COM

mighty morphin empower rangers CAPU'S NEWEST HEREOS Nicholas Cupelli × Writer Near the end of the summer break, Carolyn Stern, an instructor at Capilano University, gathered seven committed students to form the second generation of a fresh new initiative campus.

The EmPower Rangers, as they’re called, hope to break down the barriers between students of differing faculties, and bring them together by raising awareness for Take A Hike.

The program serves as an alternative form of education for today’s at risk youth. It’s a unique, full-time program utilizing four important aspects to give youth a chance to achieve their full potential in a positive manner and give them the chance to graduate and take control of their own life. The strategies include: adventure-based learning (ABL), academics, therapy, and community involvement. The combination of these methods gives the at risk youth a chance to blaze their own trail, one they may never have seen possible. “The EmPower Rangers seek to raise $20,000 by the upcoming We Day on October 22, for the Take A Hike program,” says Toni Rose Goulden, one of the student members of EmPower Rangers.

We Day, created by Craig and Marc Kielburger, is an annual event across North America, which invites extraordinary high school and elementary students who set a positive example by volunteering and giving back to their community, to come together and enjoy a day of motivational speakers and performances by special guests. This year’s theme is empowerment, hence the clever name of the EmPower Rangers.

According to Goulden, the group has so far raised $9,500 towards the Take A Hike program, starting with a hike a few weeks ago where over 30 students from CapU participated. The group

began raising awareness for this program and hasn’t slowed down since. On Oct. 3, an event held at the Portside Pub raised over $2,000 for the cause and on Oct. 9 the EmPower Rangers successfully hosted a dodgeball tournament with teams from different faculties, giving all proceeds to the Take A Hike program. “To give some perspective in regards to donations and event fees, it costs about $50 a day for a student in the Take A Hike program so this is going towards a great cause and any donations and participation will add up quickly for the benefit of the youth,” Goulden says. The final event for fundraising by the EmPower Rangers will take place on Oct. 16 and give CapU students the chance to pie-yourprof. For only $5 you can throw a pie at one of your much-loved instructors and show some support for this positive initiative.

Any students who are looking to get involved and further the support for Take A Hike are encouraged to stop by room 294 in the Birch building. “Whether it be making a donation, volunteering or even creating new events to fundraise for the program, all students are welcome to show their support and get involved,” Goulden says. And as for the upcoming We Day, the EmPower Rangers will be hosting a live stream of the event, so students can come together and watch the performances and speakers, as it is not yet being televised. This will be a cool event featuring food trucks, booths and contests. Ultimately, the group’s goal is to give students another avenue to get involved and help CapU become a changemaker campus. So go out, show your support and get involved!

For more information, readers may visit the EmPower Rangers page on Facebook. An online fundraising platform has been set up as well, and all donations up to $250 will be matched at Chimp.net/campaigns/capu-takes-a-hike.

anxious? blue? stressed? depression, anxiety and risky drinking information and screening

free, anonymous, confidential, drop-in John Braithwaite Community Centre Harbourview Room on the 2nd floor 145 W 1st Street—1 block west of Lonsdale Ave.

October 21 Drop in from 3–6 pm For youth and young adults ages 14–25.

Welcoming and friendly environment. Free food.

for more information: www.heretohelp.bc.ca

Just a couple of dudes and their swords. Training for battle. Sword for sword. It's a tough world out here by the Maple Dumpster. We're happy to have these boys protecting our campus. We like them. They make us feel safe.

caboose

CARLO JAVIER LIFESTYLE EDITOR

CABOOSE@CAPILANOCOURIER.COM

wheel of school fortune

Five ways Cap could make a little extra cash on the side:

PREDICTING THE NEXT CUTS IN THE CAPU QUEUE Andy Rice

SKETCHY TENANTS: The studio arts building is vacant now. Plus, it has high ceilings and industrial wiring. Why not rent it out to a chop shop? Or a used car dealership.

× Managing Editor Every week when the staff of the Capilano Courier gets together to assemble our next issue, we joke about a great many things. Usually they’re harmless things, like our girlfriends’ farts or the phallic-looking vegetables we find while out grocery shopping, but sometimes they’re things we probably shouldn’t joke about — things that hit a little too close to home. The recent CapU cutbacks are high on that list. Everybody knows that the times are a-changing here on campus, and we’ve all wondered what program or service might be the next to get the boot. Seeing how it’s early in the school year, I’ve decided to compile a list of my predictions — kind of like the big-wig American journalists do around Oscar time, except this is your education and comfort at stake here. So enjoy that thought, and let’s hope none of these terrible things I’m about to say ever come true. If they do, we’ll cover them in our News section.

GYM NAMING RIGHTS: The Sportsplex is home to a shitty weight room. Plenty of other shitty weight rooms in Vancouver have been turned into Steve Nash Fitness World locations.

Just saying…

VALET PARKING: Most students park by the cemetery or on Lillooet Road anyways, so why not capitalize on this loophole by renting the land to a valet parking service.

Unpopularity has never been so hassle free.

PRIORITY BOOKING: It’s like flying first class or ordering concert tickets through a presale. For an extra fee, students can jump the line for course selection and classroom seating, ensuring they’ll get the most out of their CapU experience.

STREET MEAT: If the cafeteria stopped offering meat options and encouraged customers to bring their own, supply costs would be greatly decreased. They could call it the You-Kill-We-Grill or something.

There are plenty of tasty squirrels around campus. × Cristian Fowlie

WATER

CONVOCATION FOOD

MORE PROGRAMS

I hate to break it to you, but that campus-wide WiFi we have is costing the University some serious coin. I know this because I just hooked up broadband Internet in my house, and that alone works out to be about $80 a month. There are only five of us living here but our modem still grinds to a halt all the time. I can’t even imagine what kind of data package CapU’s IT department has rigged up for 7,000 people pinging away through dozens of concrete walls on a daily basis. It must be very expensive, and therefore probably a cost the University would love to bequeath upon its thousands of students. I’m anticipating that CapU will one day implement a similar payment system to the one used at many of the world’s major airports. That, or they’ll go with the old coffee shop model from the 90s — you remember the one — $1 for 15 minutes, $2 for 30 minutes, or the bargain price of $6.95 for an entire day. It’s not like Wi-Fi is a basic human right or anything. You’ll be fine.

Speaking of basic human rights, let’s talk about the water around here. Currently, it flows from the hallway fountains and bathroom faucets like it’s one big free-for-all - even the warm water. What’s with that?

I understand the nice gesture, but this is CapU we’re talking about. Doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd that you can spend an hour on the shitter surfing the net for free, and then get up to wash your hands without spending a cent? This won’t last forever, I promise. Aramark has been charging for hot water for years — the rest of CapU has just been a little slow to catch on. Sooner or later, Lysol’s 99.9 per cent germ-free guarantee is going to cost you. Everybody knows that you should always use soap and warm water to properly sanitize your hands after desecrating a washroom, and that’s exactly where the university is going to make their money. I’m betting that the rate will be similar to the Aramark special offered at the cafeteria: boiling water on demand for 25 cents a cup. You’ll still get the soap for free just so you don’t think you’re getting completely robbed, but any liquid above room temperature is going to come with a price — unless it’s the one you just got rid of.

If you’ve ever attended a convocation ceremony at CapU you’ll know that it’s the one day of the year when Aramark takes its head out of its ass and puts on a killer spread. On what is literally your last day at CapU you finally get to experience the quality of food you probably deserved to be eating here all along. They set up a cluster of outdoor tents, they break out those fancy warming trays that real catering companies use, and they serve up a bottomless assortment of meatballs, sushi, chicken wings, desserts and beverages after the ceremony is over. I would imagine that this is an expensive thing to do, and surely not paid for by the handful of late fees the University receives from students who forgot to hand in their graduation assessment forms. If my preemptive concerns are valid, I have a feeling that the gravy train may soon run out of tracks when it comes to the free convocation food. After doing away with the fall ceremony last year and making everyone hang tight until June, this would seem like a logical next step, wouldn’t it? It’s a shame though, because that was literally all our siblings had to look forward to after three hours of speeches and musical vignettes. But at least the dean still has to wear a funny hat.

I’ve saved this one for last because the CapU course list is a pretty easy target for jokes. If you thought Bulcroft and her crew was going to stop at Studio Arts and Textiles then you obviously haven’t seen the kind of meagre budget the government has been giving these people to run a university with. That said, I’ve outlined a few course modifications that I believe would better align CapU with what seems to be the administration’s current educational philosophy. My first suggestion is regarding Costuming for Stage and Screen. Sure, it sounds like a really important course and all, but we’ve got business programs coming out the yin-yang now. That pair of slacks isn’t going to hem itself, and we could use a place on campus to get a blazer taken in on the cheap. More business students means a whole lot more demand for courses like Men’s Tailoring 300 or Introduction to Blouse Making — not any of this frilly hobbit-looking bullshit they’re doing up in the Bosa Building. And while we’re at it, why is Art History still a thing? Seeing how the creation of new art doesn’t seem to matter much around here then why the hell are we learning about the old stuff? Let’s just learn how to sell art instead, and how to market it without being too concerned about where it comes from or who creates it. Isn’t that what the Emily Carr University of Art and Design is for? I wonder who she was anyways. Meh. Probably some wealthy donor who bought the land or something…

T H E C A P I L A N O C O U R I E R . VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

FREE WI-FI

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shotgun reviews IT WAS THE YEAR

SMACK THAT

YOU JUST GOT RICKROLLED COMING OUT HETERO Steve Tornes // Never Gonna Give It Up

Faye Alexander // Straight

IPHONE

2007 seemed like a good year to try and ruin your career if you were a performer, or at least this is what Akon thought. During a trip to perform at a Trinidadian club he decided to throw an impromptu dance contest. The winner got a “trip to Africa," or in this case, you got to simulate sex with a performer onstage. Now I’m not one to judge when dancers reenact last night’s love making on the dance floor. Just go to any club on Granville and you’ll see dancers grinding and humping the night away. However, toss a 15-year-old pastor’s daughter into the mix and you have a scandal.

That's right, a 15-year-old got into a 18 and up club and then proceeded to out grind, hump, and twerk all of the other contestants! Must have been some sick moves. She even won a cash award! That screams talent. I wonder how a pastor’s daughter learned to dance so good. But let's not forget the real victim, Gwen Stefani, who lost out on $3 million after Verizon decided to drop their sponsorship on her tour with Akon.

You know what was the greatest thing to come out of 2007? The Rickroll. Sure, you may scoff, but let me just tell you how I'm feeling. Imagine, you're surfing the Internet, and you come across a previously unreleased trailer for GTA 4.

You're excited. You can hardly contain yourself.

You click. Boom! You just got Rickrolled. Is it not the greatest feeling in the world? Not convinced, well I'm never going to give this up. The meme has reached a level of fame which regular art can't achieve. Rick Astley has become an immortal and the Rickroll is never going to say goodbye.

If you're still in denial, my only guess is that you're just too shy to say it, even if your heart’s been aching for so long. If I'm ever allowed to bring the music for a party again, you will hear, in between System of the Down and Kesha, Rick Astley's “Never Going to Give You Up”. It will be glorious. The song is never going to let you down.

Of course, you wouldn't get this from any other guy. Only someone who truly loves the song is going to keep the dream of 2007 alive.

Young and looking for love in brand new places. It could have been that I was watching a lot of ‘The L Word’ on Showcase or that my last boyfriend was a total asshat - but something about being a lesbian seemed increasingly appealing. “Vaginas are pretty cool,” I thought to myself. So I got a girlfriend and she referred to me solely as ‘babygirl. We went to allgirl parties where we would grind to Biggie Smalls tracks. I wasn’t one of those stereotypical drunk girls who kisses other girls for the attention of horny college boys - my lesbian affair was real and full of girl on girl dramatics and menstrual cycles syncing up.

The only issue was I would have to come out to my parents. I sat my family down to let them know I was coming out as lesbian. I told them I had been spending my Sundays at lesbian softball games and listening to Melissa Etheridge with my girlfriend in her Volkswagon hatchback. My parents just kind of shrugged. When I pushed my mom for her personal feelings about her only gay daughter, she just said “You know you’re not really gay, right?” Yeah.

I knew it, my parents knew it, and my girlfriend knew it too. But those were some good times.

2007 will always be remembered in the timeline of human civilization as the day that accelerated the arrival of the digital age. In this year, Steve Jobs unveiled the first iteration of the iPhone. Yes, the iPhone came out seven years ago! Not only did Apple begin its methodical murder of companies such as Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia, it fucked shit up for everyone. Yeah, the easy days were gone. I used to bike to my friends’ houses and get Slurpees.

Now I spend my days looking at text bubbles, hoping I don’t get that dreaded “k.” I subconsciously keep track of my Instagram likes, Facebook likes and even check who’s seen my Snapchat stories, and it’s not just me. Everyone thinks like that – ya’ll just won’t admit it. The iPhone made all of this possible. It bent the rules of communications.

James Carey would be astounded. It seems like a lifetime ago, but I remember it so clearly. I was in the seventh grade, probably the same height, I had no cellphone, and no girl. Today I have a cellphone, but still no girls.

Scott Barkemeyer // Writer

the hOt Chart WITH

// ONCE GAY FAYE

AND

MAKE YOUR OWN

Carlo Javier // Lifestyle Editor

hOt Chart

CURIOUS CARLO

MIDTERM SEASON // ANYTIME BETWEEN SEPTEMBER AND NOVEMBER

FIRST, YOU'LL NEED SOME FLAMES.

TRANSLINK IN THE MORNING // EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF

THE CAPILANO COURIER.

VOLUME 48 I SSUE N O . 06

HOW TO HELP STUDENTS // FREE BREAKFAST ON FRIDAY MORNINGS

20

THEN YOU'LL NEED SOME SLASHES!

COURIER BACKS OUT OF DODGEBALL // HOW ABOUT A PIZZA EATING CONTEST? WHERE IS KING JONG-UN // LIKE FATHER LIKE SON STEVE HOLT // THE BOYFRIEND PARKING PAY STATIONS // TAKE MY FUCKING VISA, IT’S 2014

AND A FEW WITTY WORDS LIKE:

POPCORN KERNELS

CRYING BABIES // THE ULTIMATE BIRTH CONTROL

________________________ NATURE'S ASSHOLES

HIP HOP // BUNNIES ’N SHIT CLOONEY WEDDING // YOU NEVER HAD A CHANCE ANYWAY

GOES WITH DORITOS

________________________

FOREVER ALONE // NOT IF YOU HAVE SOME ICE CREAM

FILL IT OUT, TAKE A SNAP, OR JUST COME ON BY OUR OFFICE. WE ARE ALWAYS HAPPY TO SEE YOU.

TWEET MORE OF YOUR OWN @CAPILANOCOURIER.